


Go the Way of Destiny

by Suzume



Category: Suikoden III
Genre: Backstory, Community: femgenficathon, Gen, Original Character(s), culture gap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-13
Updated: 2009-10-13
Packaged: 2017-10-09 00:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzume/pseuds/Suzume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tielle would not give in.<br/>A story of Queen's youth in Harmonia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go the Way of Destiny

 

            When Tielle was born, her father was already dead. He had been an instigator the new Harmonian governor said. There were to be no allowances made for agitators. Though there had never been any doubt Harmonia would take Sanadia, blood had still been shed in conquering it. And this time, the blood in question was that of Rumei Rimsky, the second-in-command of the Sanadian Annexation Expeditionary Force. The actual warrior who had killed him had already been put to death, but the stain of collective guilt remained on the entire Sanadian people. They had refused the invitation to surrender and welcome in their new rulers, and in doing so, they had signed the death warrant of their sovereignty and culture. By the time Tielle was born, the second daughter of a noble house, full-scale Harmonianization was already in effect.

 

            Myalah Sasvenie had spent her life in silks and pearls, playing the piano to entertain her father, and later her husband. Even under occupation-imposed poverty, she strove to live her life with a certain degree of grace. The cobblestone streets bore the cracks of attacks that had come from below the earth, a hallmark of the work of Rumei Rimsky, "the second Sasshalai." No one had bothered to make the necessary repairs. Myalah lifted her dainty feet with care. It would not do to trip and fall in the middle of the street. While her recent past as the wife of the prince's chief treasurer meant nothing to the cold-faced Harmonian soldiers who watched her each day, her people recalled both her lineage and her dignity. Myalah Sasvenie was the descendant of kings. Though Tielle was too young to fully understand, Myalah told her little daughter this almost everyday.

            While once she had servants, Myalah was now forced to walk the crooked street to the communal well and draw her own water with a leaky wooden pail. Tielle played in the dirt outside their hovel. She had never known any other life than this, nor could she remember the innate beauty or the quiet despair of her older sister, Solanne, carried away three years ago to become the governor's third wife. Tielle was only a child, fortunate enough to have remained in her mother's care this long.

            Myalah placed the heavy bucket on the step as carefully as she could, but it was good enough. Some water splashed over the side, darkening the step, rolling onto the dry dirt of the yard, and mixing with the dust into a thick mud. Tielle reached out to put her hands in the mud, but Myalah moved quick enough to grab her tiny wrist and stop her. "No, you can't play in the mud," she scolded gently, "You'll get dirty."

            "Uh-huh," Tielle answered. She frowned, but she would do as her mother said. Threats that, "If you don't behave, I'll let the Harmonians take you," went a very long ways toward encouraging good behavior, even if Myalah could feel her heart aching as she lied that way. Eventually the Harmonians would take Tielle anyway, good or bad.

            The thing was, Tielle got dirty enough already, wandering through the unkempt yards, once well-tended, but now filled with dandelions and crab grass. Burrs would catch on her dress and her short black hair was often mussed and tangled. There were only a few other children her age in the neighborhood. One by one, around the age of five or six, they were taken away to serve and grow in Harmonian households. Orphans were given away even younger. They might never know they were anything more than everyday Harmonians. That would not be Tielle's fate if Myalah had anything to do with it.

            "Tielle, wash your hands, go inside, and set the table," Myalah instructed her daughter, "I'm going down the street to see how Ruth is doing."

            "Aunt Ruth is still sick?"

            "Yes, she's very sick," her mother answered. Ruth was not really a relative, but in the better days, she and her late husband had served the Sasvenie family. Now that both women were reduced to the same level, Myalah felt she had an even greater duty to see to the care of her dear friend. Ruth was fading inch by inch. She had a son about Tielle's age. Raymond. Who knew what would happen to him once she died? Sure, to a certain extent she knew as she strode down the alleyway that he would end up in a Harmonian household, but what did the future hold for him there? A life of servitude or an early death at the hands of a cruel master? A life of rebellion, sending him back to till the soil of an inhospitable western plantation, or a life of obedience, sending him to be cannon fodder on Harmonia's newest front? She shuddered to think of any of these things.

            Of course, these worries of hers had one positive effect on Myalah- they were causing her to plan ahead. Tielle wouldn't be hers forever. Myalah might have lost her wealth and status, but even in poverty, she still had her connections. She wasn't going to waste anymore time. As a mother, it was her duty to use them. The opportunity to have the necessary conversation was fast approaching she had to admit as she looked in on Ruth's sallow, sunken face.

           

            Raymond left town with his head held high, despite the tracks cut so recently by tears through the dirt caking his cheeks. He wasn't the only child leaving home that day, but he was the only one who went with the solemn gravity of an adult. With his mother dead, he had nothing left in the ruins in the Sanadia. As Tielle and her mother looked on, Myalah's mind was cleared of most of the questions that had plagued her the week before on her last visit with Ruth in the land of the living. Raymond might bend, but he would not break. There was determination plastered across his face. He would come out of this period of servitude a strong man, like his father before him. The only uncertainty that remained was what kind of man he would be- Sanadian...Or Harmonian.

            Tielle was still too young to understand these things. To her mother she would always be too young. "Mama, where is Raymond going? And Anana and Pearl?"

            Most of these children were only a year or two older than her. She had played marbles with Raymond many times while accompanying her mother to his house. They weren't friends, but their mothers had been, so they had grudgingly tolerated each other. Anana had taught Tielle how to make a doll out of corn husks and string. She was tall for her age, and a good leader, always organizing the other local children for huge, neighborhood-wide games of tag or hide and seek. Pearl's father had been quick to change his allegiances once the Harmonians took the city, believing it was the best way to protect his family. Obviously his efforts had not proved enough.

            "To Harmonia," Myalah told her daughter. Her voice was icy cold. Technically they were already in Harmonia, but when speaking among themselves, the adult of citizens of Sanadia resisted, persisting in at least a nominal separation of their land from that of the oppressor.

            Tielle pressed on, presenting her mother with the favorite question of small children everywhere. "Why?"

            "Because they've reached the age where they must. They could be away for as long as the next ten years."

            "Ten years?!" she worried, frowning and fretting, reaching for her mother's hand. "That's like forever! That won't happen to me, will it?"

            "No, no, it won't, dear. Not if I have anything to do with it," Myalah replied with all the ferocity of a lioness protecting her cub. Tielle slipped her small, dust-stained hand into Myalah's clean one. Myalah squeezed her fingers tight.

            The man ultimately in charge of the movement of Sanadian citizens into other parts of Harmonia was not the governor, but a priest he had delegated the task to. He dealt with these matters in conjunction with the policies being employed by Bishop Kaeyani and her agents in the southwest, Bishop Talleric in Tisbahl and Tabard, and other political heavyweights presiding over regions packed tight with Third Class Citizens. Small and unassuming, Father Koskayn-Noyemi emerged from his office behind the church to stand watch over the execution of the policy he was assigned to oversee. His part in this hated destruction of families had earned him only rancor and death threats from the people of Sanadia despite the widespread understanding that it was not Koskayn-Noyemi who was responsible for the policy. Kill this man, and Governor Mercade would appoint another to take his place. This decimation of Sanadian pride and culture was not the work of any single man or woman, but of an entire marauding, oppressive nation.

            Once this new batch of children had been carted away, the silent Sanadians, aside from weeping parents, began to depart. Father Koskayn-Noyemi, wrinkled and balding, stood at the edge of the city by the earthen barricades scooped up by Harmonian war mages to stand as makeshift walls to hold in the inhabitants of the once open city. One of the soldiers perched atop the wall shaded his eyes and stared off in the same direction as the cart carrying the youngsters, following it until it disappeared down the arid desert road.

            The sight of grown men and women sobbing openly unnerved Tielle, who scooted closer to her mother's side. "Are we going home yet?"

            "Not yet, but soon," Myalah said. She didn't look at her daughter, but continued to gaze across the plaza at the middle-aged priest. Without warning, she began to move forward, yanking her daughter along after her. "I have to talk to that priest first."

            Now Tielle changed her mind about being in her mother's tight grip. She didn't want to be pulled any closer to that scary Harmonian- she wanted to run away and hide in the hollowed out dead tree Pearl had shown her behind the rationing warehouse. She squirmed and dragged her feet, trying to pull away, but her meager efforts proved unsuccessful as Myalah tugged her onward to Father Koskayn-Noyemi, who had caught sight of their approach and was waiting, curious, to see what Myalah would say.

            "Good afternoon," the priest greeted them mildly. He never knew what to expect when dealing with Sanadians. It was best not to presume anything and simply to wait.

            "Sir," Myalah addressed him formally, "My name is Myalah Sasvenie. You might know my older daughter."

            "Miss Solanne," he replied.

            So he did know. That made things easier. "Yes. And this is my younger daughter, Tielle." She yanked the girl forward, in hopes that showing off the pathetic state of a girl who should've lived like the aristocrat she was born to be, the priest's heart might be moved in favor of her plan. Tielle was not pleased with her mother's crafty maneuverings and was quickly back at her mother's side, trying her hardest to blend discretely into Myalah's skirt.

            "There's something you want...?" Koskayn-Noyemi ventured tentatively as the last pause continued on, hanging in the air.

            "When the time comes for Tielle to leave me, I want her to go and stay with her sister and the governor," Myalah presented her idea confidently, as though as were dealing with someone on equal footing, not petitioning a conqueror as she really was. But as she continued on, her strength gave way to pleading as she cast away her pride for the sake of her daughter. "I don't care if she goes there as a servant, but please, allow Tielle to live with Solanne! She can learn the ways of Harmonia there as well as anywhere, can't she? I'd do anything for this! Anything!"

            He entertained the possibility of saying no to her or giving some harsh demands as a requirement, but swiftly let that idea slip away. Apparently she didn't realize that Governor Mercade's invitation that Myalah come to live at the mansion as an "honored guest" remained open. He didn't relish wielding power over the powerless. He was only doing his job, a job that would eventually exercise a positive effect on life in Sanadia. Later generations would not suffer like these ones. They would fully integrated in Harmonian society. "I'll speak with the governor about it," he promised.

            Like any other Harmonian noble running a large household, Governor Mercade needed plenty of help to take care of his expensive mansion and holdings, and for reasons of convenience as well as cost, locals were preferred to do this work. There was also the added hope that if Solanne heard that her younger sister wanted to come live and work at the governor's mansion that she could throw whatever weight she had as his wife, however small, toward getting Tielle into the best possible position. More than in the past, Myalah had hope.

            "Thank you, thank you," Myalah practically wept. She hadn't been entirely sure he would even agree to passing on the message until he said so. "Thank Father Koskayn-Noyemi, Tielle," she urged her daughter.

            Tielle bit her lip. She didn't want to talk to this weird old priest. How would sending her to the governor's mansion help her any? She didn't want to leave her mother at all. "Uh-uh," she refused, shaking her head.

            Myalah felt a chill run down her spine and she turned in preparation to convince Tielle to be polite even if it took a few sharp words to motivate her. They were noble people and Tielle was going to behave like an aristocrat even if she had to live like a serf. Who knew, this purposeful breach of manners could break the deal.

            But the priest laughed. Myalah stopped, straightening back up. "No, no, that's fine," he insisted. "She doesn't need to thank me. She doesn't understand what you're doing for her."

            It made her start to blush a bit, and the tears, a mix of frustration and relief, that she had worked so hard to hold back, began to dribble down her cheeks because he was being kind. He understood her feelings. He was a person after all. Was it a blessing or a curse that more of the Harmonians didn't know this? It was so much more difficult when they were kind.

            "Mama, Mama, come on," Tielle tugged at her mother's hand. She was like a statue, fixed to that spot on the side of the plaza. The pavement was cracked beneath her feet, treacherous and serpentine. Koskayn-Noyemi looked at Tielle for a minute, and she redoubled her efforts to stir her mother from her stupor. He was a bad man, making her mother cry like that. He was bad and she hated him. At last, he bowed his head to them, having no hat to tip, and turned, walking away. Myalah was roused at last after what had felt a disastrous eternity to her daughter.

            "Let's go home, Mama."

"Yes, dear."

 

*********

 

            Solanne Sasvenie-Mercade felt cold. As cold as if her bones were made of ice. It made no difference if she bundled up or opened the windows to let in the dry desert air. No tea or fire or hot bath could warm her because the chill came from within her. It was not the result of any disease or defect of character, but had results from the pain inherent in the situation she was living in. Her heart had turned to ice.

            She looked down from the balcony and did not recognize the little girl being brought in through the servants' entrance as her younger sister. It wasn't surprising. When she had left home, Tielle had been nothing more than a baby. They knew of each other, but there was no real sisterly bond between the two. The thing they shared most strongly was their affection for their mother. All they had in common was blood.

 

            The governor left his study to greet his sister-in-law. He liked to give the impression that he was an eternally busy man, moving from one task to another without rest, but as a result of his skillful delegation and the heavy military presence General Ernbrock maintained in the area he often found himself with substantial amounts of leisure time in which he could enjoy his many hobbies, from collecting butterflies to translating old Arradian texts to practicing his archery. Of course, just because he had all this time didn't mean he devoted much of it to his wife or children. He liked his work and he liked his hobbies. Wives and children were simply another part of the trapping of a successful life when one was a First Class Citizens.

            Tielle felt uncomfortable around him from the moment she stepped into his presence on the chestnut-colored tile of the kitchen. Governor Katch Felip Mercade was an imposing physical presence at six feet and three inches. He was somewhere in his fifties, his blond hair graying all the way through and tied back with a bow in a smooth little ponytail. Myalah had been aged before her time by the stress of the occupation, but Tielle could still see that her brother-in-law was significantly older than her mother. She wanted to tell him so, but held back her quick tongue, thinking of the many times her mother had exhorted her before leaving to, "Be thankful for your situation. Treat the governor and his family with respect. Do exactly as they tell you."

            "Good morning, sister," Katch greeted her. Tielle stared at his piggish, upturned nose. "Sister," huh? This old guy might be her brother-in-law, but she had seen enough to know she certainly wasn't here to be his sister. "It's already heating up this early in the morning," he small-talked with the precision of a man with much experience.

            "Hey," she said to him in reply, nodding her small head.

The governor raised an eyebrow.

            Kiana, the woman in charge of Tielle and the other young helpers in the house, looked like she might pass out. Everyone was clueless their first day, but hadn't anyone told this girl _anything_ about how she was to address the governor and other Harmonians of high rank? She hoped Tielle learned quickly, because otherwise this sharp-tongued girl was going to be the death of her. There were certain standards one needed to uphold in a household of this caliber, after all.

            "Hey?" Katch asked in reply. "I don't get it."

            Tielle stuck her hands into her pockets and gaze up at the mountain of a man. She couldn't think of anything nice to say, so she didn't say anything. His piercing gray eyes seemed so far away they could've been stars in the night sky and he smelled like old books and garlic. What had possessed her sister to marry a man like this? She must be pretty stupid, Tielle figured. Tielle herself still had some concerns about boys and their cooties, but if she had to get married, at least she'd pick around her own age who didn't smell so strange. Her mother's words and the harsh realities of life in Sanadia had taught her many things, but in some respects, Tielle was still quite naive.

            "She doesn't mean any harm, sir," Kiana stammered, regaining her scattered senses. "She's just being casual."

            "Cute kid," Katch said. He was no longer smiling condescendingly. His expression was close to neutral. Kiana frowned and fidgeted with the fringe on her apron. She didn't like it when she couldn't tell if he were being sarcastic or not. It was unnerving.

            "Do as you're told, Tielle, and things here will be just fine," he knelt down to her level, instructing her in much the same words her mothers had used but with a cool aura of command taking the place of fervent pleading. If she failed her mother, Myalah's heart would be broken. If she failed Governor Mercade, he would only punish her. It would be nothing personal.

            He patted her on the head before he left. Tielle scrunched up her face in annoyance. She hated it when someone messed up her hair (not that there was much to mess up with the straight, short cut she kept it in).

            "Oh, my heart..." Kiana sighed in relief, leaning back against a counter and clutching at her chest. "I had no idea what to expect next!"

            Tielle's annoyance faded as she watched the assistant chef's bizarre melodramatics. If Kiana talked to herself like this often, she was going to be an amusing person to be around- and Tielle knew that it only took one interesting person's presence to spice up the entire area, just as a tiny pinch of pepper made an entire bowl of soup hot.

            "Well, I think the first order of business with you will be setting some ground rules," Kiana decided once her heart had stopped pounding so erratically. "I am the assistant chef here and it is my job to handle all of the lesser servants in this household. You will report directly to me on all matters unless specifically asked to do otherwise by the governor or the lady."

            Tielle nodded. She was listening. Kiana didn't seem like a bad person. She was just doing her job the best that she could. And she was Sanadian, wasn't she? She would understand some of the particulars of her situation. ...Or was she? Actually, Tielle was quite sure. Kiana didn't look like most of the Harmonians she had met. She had dark skin and black hair, along with very piercing blue eyes. She didn't look like Tielle's standard idea of a Harmonian, but she didn't seem quite Sanadian either. This was a bit of a stumbling block in her fitting this woman into the grid that had developed in her mind: Harmonian or Sanadian? Oppressor or oppressed? There would be only one criteria by which to judge Kiana, and it would be by her actions.

            "You will address the governor as "Governor" or "Sir" or "Lord Mercade." You can call his wife, "Lady" or "Ma'am" or "Lady Mercade." Avoid speaking any of the governor's children, and their tutor for that matter- she's one shrill customer. An icy one too. Me, I don't stand much on ceremony. You can just call me "Kiana." Come on," she headed through the back of the kitchen with Tielle on her heels across the dry yard to a wooden building set a fair distance from the main house but still within its fences.

            Kiana opened the door and allowed her young charge in ahead of her. This was the servants' quarters, set up like a dormitory. It appeared to be set up to house seven or eight people. All of the bunks were empty, but several were left decorated or sloppily made in such a way as to shed some light onto the character of their inhabitants. One bed was covered with a patchwork quilt of green and pinks scraps cobbled together to resemble roses. On another bed the sheets had been left hastily thrown back from the time its inhabitant had scrambled away to work that morning, presumably without much time to spare.

            "This place will be yours," Kiana instructed her, patting one of the lower bunks. "You can put your things in here," she gestured to a bland wooden chest at the foot of the bed.

            "Why can't I have a top bunk?" Tielle wanted to ask, but she restrained herself because it didn't seem like a good idea to be rude to her boss on the very first day, especially after that show with the governor. She had to think of her mother. Myalah wouldn't have wanted her to get a bad reputation or be at odds with the people who should be her friends in the house.

            Tielle had barely brought a thing with her. She didn't own much to begin with and her mother had warned her that she might not be able to keep her things, so a few pieces of jewelry her mother had given her had remained for safekeeping at their little wooden house. She placed her bag on top of the chest and stuck with Kiana as she moved onward, back out of the servants' quarters, carrying on with her advice and rules for the new girl to follow.

            A boy walked past, carrying two buckets of water on a yoke over his shoulders. His tan face was smudged with dirt and he stunk like expensive perfume. It was an odd combination. Tielle could still tell that he was one of them. A servant. The florid perfume probably cloaked some inhabitant of the house like a November fog. Was it her sister? Tielle hoped not. If Solanne smelled like that, what were the chances they had anything in common? What were the odds she wasn't completely Harmonianized?

            ...And why shouldn't she be? She lived in a beautiful mansion with servants to tend to her needs. Her husband was distinguished, if old and annoying. Still, it would be sad to find out that Solanne had left her roots behind. Tielle didn't expect much time to talk with her older sister, but she had hoped they would have some sort of special bond based on their shared heritage, if not their particular family tree. There was no way their mother would've given Solanne the advice to assimilate and Tielle the advice to retain her identity. Doing what you needed to do to survive was one thing, surrendering your background in exchange for another was something else entirely.

            "Are you listening to me, Tielle?" Kiana interrupted her wandering thoughts.

            "Err, uh," she stalled, trying to focus on what the nice woman had just been saying to her, "Something about the kitchen? ...Can you tell me again?"

            Kiana frowned. She didn't like the way Tielle was reacting to being caught daydreaming. She was unapologetic. It was a bad sign. "I was telling you that you're going to get up at dawn each day to help me out in the kitchen. You'll have to wash and dry dishes and do whatever other jobs I need you to do."

            "Oh, okay." All things considered, it didn't sound that bad. They weren't asking her to go draw the governor's bath or anything. This was the kind of work she had already done at home to help out her mother.

 

            It turned out that she was right about the kind of work. But as far as the volume of work was concerned, she had had no idea. The kitchen bustled nearly all day long. There were three meals to make for the family, three meals to make for the servants, and random snacks to whip up for the governor and his older children according to their flighty whims.

            Tielle stood on a step stool to reach the sink. She looked at her pink, wrinkled fingertips, thinking that if she spent much more time with them in the sink, they would be pruny forever. "Are we done for now?" she asked Kiana impatiently. When they were between jobs, Kiana would let her go out into the yard or back to the servant's quarters to take a nap or play with Talzian, the boy she had seen carrying water on her first day. He was closest in age to her of all the servants here and had also received this post as a result of family ties. His mother had claimed he was the illegitimate child of Rumei Rimsky. The fact that this argument was not disputed by the governor, who had been Rumei's brother-in-law through his second wife, was evidence enough that it was true or all but.

            The inheritance-less Talzian Rimsky didn't talk much about it. Tielle learned about his background from Kiana and thought it was something of a surprise. Talzian didn't look the least bit Harmonian, but perhaps the shade of his hair was the same as the man the Harmonians had called the "russet wonder." If anyone had been scammed by life, it was Talzian, in Tielle's opinion. How could he bear it? He was worked hard by his uncle and cousins, harder than she or Kiana was, and harder than the other servants as far as she could tell, almost as if it was punishment for his mere existence. It didn't sound like the Rimsky family had been informed about their bastard scion, but that Katch had kept his knowledge of the boy to himself to save them the trouble and the possible scandal. All in all, Rumei Rimsky had been a typical Harmonian "war hero."

            "Sure, sure, dry your hands and go," Kiana dismissed her. "Just be ready to come at my call. Never know when we're going to need you."

            "Yay!" Tielle yelled, throwing up her hands. She made no effort to disguise her excitement. Free time when she wasn't so tired she melted into her pillow in exhaustion was hard to come by. If she were lucky, Talzian would be without tasks too.

            "Tal?" she asked, skipping out into the yard. He usually lingered outside the backdoor when he was waiting for his next bit of work. He didn't want to be far from the beck and call of his masters and mistresses because the haughty Astalia and Dimionne, the governor's children by his second wife, might hit him or yell. Tielle hadn't seen much of them since coming to the governor's mansion and she hoped to keep it that way. They were loud and irritable and appeared to be in their early thirties. It made Tielle like them even less. Weren't they too grown-up to be living with their father and acting like such big babies? Just about the only thing she knew about Astalia was that she was the one practically bathed in perfume (she was happy to find out it wasn't her sister). All she could say about Dimionne was that he spent most of his time in the library, but when he was crossed, he could be just as noisy and obnoxious as his older sister.

            Tal wasn't under the almond tree or sitting on the step. Tielle sighed in disappointment. It could be boring to have free time without anyone to talk to. She hadn't brought any books along with her and had never been able to get her hands on any here. She could tell that Kiana, at least, could read because she used a cookbook in the kitchen, but reading in general seemed to be discouraged among the servants. What to do now? She could scribble in her journal (she couldn't think of much to write, so she usually drew pictures of pretty princesses on long-legged horses) or climb trees or just walk around the yard thinking, but if she did that, someone else might see her idling and decide she could use some more work to occupy her time.

            She was still making up her mind when a shrill voice interrupted her thoughts. "You there! Where is Talzian?"

            Tielle whipped her head around to see Astalia Mercade standing on the back step, her arms crossed furiously and her pale face reddened with anger. "Uh," she gaped stupidly.

            Apparently she wasn't responding fast enough for the governor's daughter because Astalia took this as a cue to stomp out into the yard in her pink day slippers and glare down at Tielle in hopes of cowing her into submission. "Yes, Talzian, girl. Where is he?"

            Now that Tielle had had a chance to recover her composure, she was annoyed. She wasn't dumb. She didn't need anything repeated to her. "I don't know," she snapped, "I haven't seen him all day." It was the truth. It was only her manner of relating it that was biting.

            Astalia recoiled, stung by Tielle's tone. Before she could be angered further, she first had to reel with the shock. No one had ever spoken to her this way before. Her late mother had indulged her every whim, her uncle Rumei had treated her like a princess and her father had done likewise. The servants respected her and trembled in her presence and her hated Sanadian stepmother did likewise. She stared at Tielle, wondering what she could possibly do or say that would put this girl thoroughly in her place.

            Tielle rolled her eyes and began to walk away. Why was Astalia just standing there like that? Her fury transformed her plain face into a monstrous one. Tielle's break wasn't going to be infinite. She didn't have the time to waste on this distraction. She might as well go inside and draw.

            "Where do you think you're going?" Astalia yelled after her.

            "Inside," she shrugged, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Geez, was this lady stupid or what? And she really did stink. Hadn't anyone ever told her perfume was supposed to be subtle? Even Tielle knew that.

            "I didn't dismiss you."

            "But I wasn't even doing any work for you. You asked me a question and I answered it."

            Talzian burst out of the back door just before Astalia had a chance to gather her vitriol to respond to that. "Lady Astalia! I'm right here!" he announced in a loud and severe tone. He didn't usually speak that way to the governor's daughter, but it scared him the way she was focusing on Tielle so intently and he didn't want to see what would come next in this confrontation. Tielle and Astalia both had powerful wills, but one was the master and the servant. There was only one way the situation could end.

            "Talzian!" Astalia turned her attention to the boy. "Where were you?"

            "I was climbing around in the attic to find some books for Master Dimionne," he replied calmly. "I must not've been able to hear you calling. I'm sorry, Ma'am."

            This placated her somewhat. "Oh," her lip twitched, "I see. Well, it's just one of those things then. Let's go then. I have some work for you," she turned and headed back inside after him, closing the door softly.

            Tielle sighed in relief, her jaw hanging open long after Astalia and Talzian were gone. What had she been saying? Speaking that way to Astalia was extremely foolhardy, even if the older woman had no reason to treat her that way. What had come over her? ...The only thing was, despite how her own unexpected words had shaken her, Tielle felt no guilt over what she had done. Astalia had deserved it. Tielle wasn't about to kneel and scrape just because some overgrown spoiled brat didn't like her answer to a question. As small as it was, there was a flame of pride within her heart and it was also a spark of power. It was up to her to decide what she was going to take and what she wasn't here in the governor's mansion just like anywhere else.

 

***

 

            "Solanne, I met your sister," Astalia said, a smug little quirk of her lips betraying her cruel intentions. She was starting small to gauge her young stepmother's reaction. The effects just wouldn't be the same if she came in complaining about what a loud-mouthed brat Tielle appeared to be.

            "Oh," Solanne replied softly, just for the sake of acknowledging her stepdaughter's remark. Astalia was nine years older than Solanne and this was one part of the friction between them. All Solanne could do was try not to offend her. She should've been in the more powerful position as the stepparent, but so many other factors conspired against her: being younger, being Sanadian, not to mention less educated...

            "What's that? Don't you care about your little sister?" Astalia knew Solanne's cold ways of deflecting her barbs with an icy exterior and she wasn't about to give up so easily. Solanne could only pretend to be made of ice for so long. If Astalia really wanted to, eventually she would find a way to break through the frigid surface to her warm heart. "She looks a little like you. She has short hair, but straighter than yours. Good posture too."

            Solanne nodded just slightly, her short, soft hair bobbing its gentle waves against the backdrop of her cheeks. She picked up her embroidery and set back to work on it, stitching tiny blue cornflowers onto a white blanket for her own daughter.   She didn't have much to fill her days, but she still had better things to than listen to Astalia's poisoned tongue. Astalia was like a bouquet purposely made up to and given away with a bee inside. When she wasn't off courting, there could be only one of two things on her mind- her own comfort and others' displeasure.

            Astalia was getting tired of this. Maybe Solanne really was as icy as she seemed to be. To Astalia's knowledge, Solanne had never even gone so far as to meet her sister. Perhaps this was the downfall of the Sanadians- they didn't even feel strongly enough toward their own relatives to want to save their children generations of slavery. "Don't you feel like seeing her?"

            "Not especially," she said flatly. It was easy to project a neutral demeanor, since her real feelings weren't far from this facade. She did want to speak with Tielle. She wanted to ask her about their mother and Ruth and some of the other people they probably both had known, but she barely knew her sister and she had grown used to disappointment long ago. What good would it do to get her hopes up?

            This just wasn't going to work out the way Astalia had intended it. She had been hoping for a more interested reaction from Solanne. She had seen so much potential for fun in going out of her way to torment that little spitfire Tielle in front of her sister, knowing her clueless father was the only one who could tell her to stop. Her smirk had already dripped off her severe face, leaving behind a sour, drooping frown. "I see," she hissed, getting up from her place on the small couch to leave that impossible stepmother of hers alone again. Unlike her run in with Tielle, which had left her too frazzled to act immediately, this time Astalia remembered to slam the door behind her as she left. Fine, be that way, she huffed. She had plenty of other things she could be doing. And she could still up some trouble for Tielle if she really felt like it, it just wouldn't be possible to torture both Sasvenies at once.

            Solanne let herself slump slightly after Astalia was gone. It was hard being around someone so obviously out to get her for so long. Becoming the governor's wife had not been her first choice of futures, but when they were wed six years ago in an impromptu Harmonian ceremony in the only church completed thus far in the region, she had not known it would be like this. Often Katch ignored her, her stepchildren hated her and made no secret of it, she never saw her mother because of Myalah's proud refusal to come live at the governor's mansion and Katch's insistence that she never leave, she didn't know her sister, her children were barely hers given over too young to the care of a Harmonian nanny who viewed her as someone with nothing positive to pass on to her offspring. Feeling so numb was the only thing that kept her from doing something drastic.

            She was so cold she moved as slowly as a glacier. She couldn't think of a way to act drastically if she tried. She was as pitifully resigned and as helpless as her ravaged homeland. She was so empty she no longer cried as she worked away on this one insignificant thing she could do for her four-year-old daughter. They were going to be almost as strange to each other as she and Tielle. But the pain, like always, was stabbing and cold. Once frozen, how could she grow any colder? What else was there that this world could do to her?

 

***

 

            Talzian had worked hard over the past three months to take the brunt of any anger directed at Tielle. At first he had just felt sorry for her, being young and naive, but the more time he was spending around her, the more he started to wonder if he loved her. She had just turned nine. She was too young for love. He had to admit he wasn't much older or wiser. He was only twelve. But he had known a lot of hate in the course of his life, so he was pretty sure that he understood this strong feeling as the opposite: love.

            "Talzian," Tielle popped out of the back of the kitchen, "Kiana's not feeling so good. She needs extra help. Are you busy?"

            "No," he stood up and brushed off his pants. "I was just thinking." It was a hot day, with the heavy cloud cover trapping in the high temperature. Beads of sweat were running down his cheeks.

            "You, uh, might want to get cleaned up though. You look kind of dirty, and it's the kitchen after all."

            "I'll just wash my hands and face."

            They came into the kitchen together, slipping around the head chef as she took a tray of buttery rolls out of the oven. It was even hotter in here than it was outside. Talzian washed his hands in the lukewarm water of the half-full sink and splashed his face as well, wiping it dry on his sleeve. He was very obedient to the masters, so Tielle liked to see him like this, acting a little bit bold.

            Kiana didn't look very well, tossing the salad greens with a pair of tongs. Her face was redder than could be explained away by the heat and she had dark circles under her eyes. "Oh, good, you found him," she let out a sigh of relief as she passed the salad bowl into Tielle's hands. "I can't go out in front of the family looking like this. I need you to take my place tonight in setting and serving the table, Tielle. Now, now, don't worry, you won't be doing it alone. I've shown you how to set the table before and when you're serving you just need to be polite and follow Fiona and Kelrynne's lead."

            "Err, uh, I'll try," she mumbled. She wasn't exactly nervous. She didn't imagine she would mess up, but there was always a tense sort of anticipation associated with tending to a task she had never done before. She had never been inside the dining room while the family was eating. This would allow her an opportunity to see them all together up close and personal, whether or not this was a chance she had particularly desired.

            From the moment Tielle stepped into the dining room, she thought Talzian was lucky to remain in the kitchen. The long table, large enough to seat about twelve people if there were guests, was nearly ready with places set for each member of the household who would be eating there, from the governor to his two-year-old twins.

            "Don't dally, Tielle," Kelrynne jostled past her, hurrying to place delicately folded cloth napkins (they were meant to look like swans) on all the plates.

            Tielle had to stand on tiptoe to place the bowl in the center of the table. She wasn't idling. She was doing this as fast as she could. Kelrynne was just a prissy kiss-up. She was a favorite of Ms. Astraav, the nanny and tutor, as well as the older children with her fawning over Harmonian ways and culture. She was trying to get people to call her "Orial" now instead of "Kelrynne," her birth name, as an indication of her newfound (Harmonian) faith. Orial was apparently a rather servile saint who had brought waters into the desert. The other servants were having none of this pious junk. She was "Kelrynne" to them and "Kelrynne" she would remain.

            "And...perfect!" Fiona declared, setting a vase of white and yellow tulips as a centerpiece. The table was ready and within seconds the family would begin to file in.

            Tielle stood to the side with Fiona and Kelrynne watching the ice cubes melt. She glanced toward the kitchen and caught sight of Talzian struggling to chip a block of ice. He was probably preparing to make shaved ice for their desert. She smiled at the back of his head, but he didn't feel her eyes on him and didn't turn around. She wondered if he would leave the governor's mansion when he was older or if he would stay to suffer stoically for the sake of relatives who never respected or loved him. If he asked her opinion she would tell him to leave. That was exactly what she'd do as soon as she had the chance. She would go home to her mother and work to take care of her. How exactly she'd go about doing this, she wasn't sure, but it was bound to work out one way or another.

            The door opened and Dimionne came in, polishing his spectacles and sniffing the air. "Is that a roast, Orial?"

            "Yes, most certainly," she curtsied, as if the contents of the meal had anything to do with her. Unless there was a specific request from the governor, the head chef, Magdalena, made all the selections.

            Solanne came in next. She wore all black as she often did. Tielle had never seen her in anything but dark or drab colors. She walked with her back proud and straight just like their mother, but unlike Myalah, she shamefully hung her head. Just after her came Ms. Astraav, carrying the twins, with little Alnika at her side. Solanne helped her situate the boys so they were propped up high and close enough to the table to eat. Even if they could reach their plates, they were bound to make a mess, picking at the food with their hands while Ami Astraav and Solanne tried to feed them. Alnika needed to be boosted up as well, but she was old enough to have learned proper table manners.

            Domionne uncorked the wine and poured himself a glass in defiance of the usual policy of waiting until the entire family was situated and the meal blessed before eating. Fiona twitched nervously, expecting that the governor would not be pleased with this breach of etiquette when he arrived and saw it, but she couldn't really think of anything she could do to stop him.

            "You ladies think the temperature's going to hit a record high this week? It has been unseasonably warm," he said, speaking generally to everyone in the room.

            "Can't say," Ami answered, fussing with one of the twins.

            "Ah! Excellent! I've been working up quite an appetite," Katch enthused, as he pounded into the kitchen on heavy feet. His good nature was refreshing compared to that of his older children, but Tielle still didn't want to make the mistake of smiling at him. She had a feeling any outreach of good will directed toward the governor could easily be misconstrued the wrong way. They weren't friends and they weren't going to be friends. He was the master and she was the servant. Kelrynne pulled out his chair for him and Katch muttered something apologetic about him being a man and her being a lady. Tielle lost her need to smile. If she was such a lady, why wasn't he pulling out a chair for her to sit at the table alongside him?

            "This looks great." He turned to look at Tielle and Fiona, a crease wrinkling his brow to indict that for a moment he questioned the presence of Tielle instead of Kiana, but he let the thought slip away as he repeated his overwhelming sentiment, "Tell Magdalena that everything looks great. I already know it's going to taste great."

            He turned toward the other direction, looking at the half-open door. "Where's Astalia? She's keeping us waiting and I am really hungry."

            "Do you want me to go and find her?" Kelrynne asked.

            "Not yet, not yet," Katch waved a thick and aged hand side to side through the air. "We can give her a minute or two more."

            His eyes met Solanne's for the first time since coming into the room. "That dress suits you," he said. It was also the first thing he had said within the dining room that night that was not positively jovial in character. He looked quite serious as he appraised Solanne's appearance.

            She met his gaze with a quiet calm of her own. "Thank you." Tielle practically imagined she would call him, "Sir" or "Governor." Did her sister ever call this old man "Katch?" It was hard to imagine it.

 

            The waiting time that passed before Astalia deigned to make an appearance was in all likelihood not much more than two or three minutes, but it was an uncomfortable eternity to Tielle, and apparently to her brother-in-law as well, who unfolded his cloth napkin and tucked it across his lap, then proceeded to fiddle with the silverware, not speaking to any of the assorted members of his household present in the room.

            "Sorry I'm late," Astalia said as she slunk into the room. As far as Tielle could tell, she didn't look especially sorry. She was smirking despite her supposed apologetics and she walked with her turned up nose in the air. Tielle wondered if anyone had ever made fun of her as a girl for looking so much like a pig. Even for a Harmonian, Tielle found Astalia pretty distasteful. She wasn't even that pretty. No wonder she couldn't get married.

            "Finally," Katch muttered, making no secret of his impatience. Tielle enjoyed watching the way Astalia's smug, self-satisfaction slipped away like mascara running down wet cheeks at her father's criticism. Apparently someone's opinion other than her own _did_ matter to the stuck-up woman after all.

            Katch scrambled through a quick prayer and then the family began to eat, initiating the servants' work in earnest. Tielle scurried around refilling any glass that dipped below half-full (except for Domionne's wine glass, because they last thing anyone wanted to deal with was Domionne drunk).

            "Orange slices? On a roast?" Astalia complained, "Who came up with this idea? Do I have to eat this?"

            "There's salad too, Talia," Domionne groaned. "Do you have to eat noodles at every meal? Or cake?"

            "It wouldn't hurt you to lay off the wine," his older sister scowled, beckoning Fiona to serve her an extra large portion of salad.

            "It wouldn't hurt either of you to shut up and let me enjoy my meal," the governor murmured to himself between bites. Tielle was nearby, passing Ami the jam for the rolls, so she suspected she was the only one who could hear him.

            After a few moments of cold, purposeful silence, Astalia turned her whip-like tongue back to her usual victim, Solanne. "Who taught you to cut your meat like that?" Several pairs of eyes gravitated toward Solanne's plate. Tielle didn't see anything wrong with it. But, then again, she had never known there was a "right" way to cut meat at all. You just cut it. "You may look like a pretty porcelain doll, but deep down you're as savage as the rest of them," Astalia continued, watching Solanne's jaw tighten as she silently studied herself against these ill-intentioned words. Tielle's teeth were clenched as well, but her reaction was one of defiance, not defense.

            "She can eat however she wants to as long as it's not in front of company," Ami Astraav answered, not truly defending Solanne's actions. Tielle was unhappy to see the nanny's distaste grow worse. "And as long as the children don't learn from her." She reached over nonchalantly and straightened the fork in Alnika's hand. "Like this, dear."

            Solanne looked down at her plate, solemnly picking up an orange slice.

            "The governor needs another napkin, Tielle," Fiona jolted her back to the reality of her position not a moment too soon. She nodded and swallowed the passionate invective she had been preparing to hurl in her sister's defense.

            The bitter dialogue carried on as she rushed back to the kitchen where Talzian met her just inside the doorway. "Here you are," he presented her with a clean napkin. He had obviously been listening in. Magdalena was turning the force of a small ice spell on four large bowls of shaved ice and three tiny ones to keep them relatively solid until they were called for. Kiana was nowhere to be seen, having presumably left to go lie down.

            "Tal-," she said, feeling the need to find some sort of outlet for her frustration.

            "No time," he replied, turning her around to face the dining room once more. If she wanted to talk later, that was fine, but for now she would have to keep quiet and do her job.

            She passed the napkin to Fiona, who exchanged it for the governor's stained one. He was no longer enjoying his meal. It was at this point that he drew the line with his family. If they wanted to bother each other, so be it, but he was going to have a pleasant evening. "Domionne! Astalia! Shut up!" he snapped, "All of you, shut up! I'm trying to savor my meal and you're giving me a headache!"

            Startled by his father's outburst, one of the twins began to cry. Solanne reached for the boy, but Ami moved faster, snatching him up into her arms. "Father," Astalia whined, "It's no fair yelling at all of us. It's Solanne's fault that everyone is getting so worked up."

            "That is _enough_, Astalia." She withered under the full force of his glare. This was the one person in the house who could draw a line she would not brazenly cross. Tielle was disappointed. As much as she liked to see Astalia getting what she deserved, something about this wasn't very satisfying. "Solanne, take your plate and go finish eating in your room," Katch commanded his wife. The bite had gone out of his voice, replaced by a pragmatic annoyance.

            Solanne didn't argue or agree with this decision. She set her napkin on the table and picked up her plate. Tielle managed to hold back her shock long enough to react to this sudden justice realistically. "I'll help her!" she declared, rushing to pick up Solanne's napkin and glass of pomegranate juice, trailing her older sister out of the room.

            Solanne left the dining room swiftly, but after she was out of sight of the Mercades, she slowed her pace and eventually stopped at the foot of the stairs to allow Tielle to catch up without running. However, once she deemed the distance between them sufficiently closed, she proceeded onward up to her bedroom without saying a word to her sister.

            She sat down to eat at a small oak wood writing desk, pushing aside a stack of pink and yellow stationery to make space for her plate. Tielle set the glass down and handed her the napkin, which Solanne neatly resettled on her lap. Tielle waited, wondering if she would yell or cry or curse or at least say something, but instead she picked up the fork she had laid across her plate before leaving and returned her attention to her meal. How could anyone accuse a lady of this sort of having bad manners? She wasn't a slob, she was a paragon of etiquette, Tielle thought, and not only that, she was practically a martyr!

            Being an impatient young girl, Tielle finally loosed her tongue first. "Why do you let them treat you like that?"

            Solanne proved herself, yet again, to be both mature and resigned. She swallowed and wiped her lips before answering. "I knew what I was getting from the very beginning going into this." That was it. The first words she had spoken to her sister since her arrival at the house.

            "Really?" Tielle challenged her, scrunching her fingers into fists as she posed the question. What was Solanne getting out of this? She couldn't seriously believe that anyone would knowingly put themselves into this awful situation. "Did you really know or are you just making excuses for them?"

            For whatever reason, this was Solanne's breaking point. Even here in the privacy of her own room she did not sob. Silent tears began to roll down her cheeks hugging the curves of her heart-shaped face. "No. I didn't know," she admitted. "I had no idea. There was so much pressure. And at the time I thought it would be all right. "How bad could it be?" I asked myself. I remembered what it was like to live in a mansion, Tielle. Before the invasion our family was rich and respected. We had servants and nice clothes and a library and a piano that I played everyday. I would have all of that again." She carefully dabbed an unused corner of the napkin along her red-rimmed eyes. "I though I would be giving this life to you and to Mother too, but she refused to come and live here. I thought she was just too proud. Now I can without a doubt that she was right all along. One can't compromise oneself for a little luxury today. There are a thousand tomorrows to think of. It's as bad as selling one's soul."

            After all the distance between them, this chilling admission was almost too much for Tielle to bear. She stood trembling, struck with the irrational fear that her life would turn out just like her sister's. She had wanted to talk to Solanne before, but now, griped by this terror, she fled from her sister as if her misfortune were a contagious disease. She returned to the dining room somber as a ghost and served the remaining masters of the household their dessert of shaved ice and cherries. She was too shocked to be anything but the epitome of obedience. She hurried through the washing, drying, and re-shelving of the dishes afterward, her desire to speak with Talzian also forgotten. She allowed him to be the home to deliver dessert to Solanne's room.

            It was not until she was alone in bed that night that she remembered her sister was not the entirety of her heritage.

 

            Tielle did her work the same as always, assisting Kiana in the kitchen, sweeping the yard, hanging out laundry to dry and other tasks, but inside she felt different than before the evening she had spoken to Solanne. Her mother had chosen to live her life as independently and proudly as she could. Her father had died on his feet for his refusal to compromise. She had made up her mind that it was in their noble footsteps she would tread, not in the tremulous tiptoeing of Solanne. She was biding her time.

 

            Talzian was unnerved by the new air he had observed about Tielle. He was an exceedingly cautious youth and he had the suspicion that she was on the verge of doing something very foolhardy. However, he just couldn't find a spare moment in which to discuss it with her. Astalia had run across a new marriage prospect and was running him ragged with message-carrying and all manner of work to help her look her best for this (un)fortunate young gentleman (a Kaeyani, the rumors said).

            Talzian had no way of knowing he had inherited his father's keen instincts as there was no one to bother to tell him so. Rumei Rimsky had also known how to grasp the mood or his men or his enemy from the flimsiest of hints. Talzian caught sight of Tielle in the kitchen as he passed through the yard carrying buckets of water. He worried about her.

 

            The day of reckoning turned out to be the third day of the month. Tielle was dusting the shelves of the library while the bright sun of early morning blazed through the window. Once again it was shaping up early to be another hot day in Sanadia. It had been a man best known for his efforts to deal equitably with Third Class Citizens who had said, "The dry plains of the far west are the closest one can come on this continent to the sensation of walking on the sun. I would forgive anyone who lived in such a place for being a little ill-tempered about foreign rule." He had died about a year earlier, but his extensive writings about his experiences as bishop of the volatile Tabard and Tisbahl area had already been added to the library of Katch Mercade, as well as those of many other Harmonians in similar administrative positions. It was a pity Katch had accepted them as a gift from an acquaintance in the capital but had never bothered to read them.

            Katch strutted into the library looking for some notes he had misplaced. They concerned his plans to rebuild the rough military garrison of Swansard into something a little more permanent. He had scribbled them down the night before and seemed to have put them down somewhere around here...

            "Mr. Mercade," Tielle spoke up.

            Katch, spooked, nearly jumped. He hadn't noticed her in here. She was working away so quietly and he was used to taking the servants' presence for granted. "Oh, Tielle. Good morning. What is it?"

            She couldn't have looked that intimidating standing by a globe and holding a feather duster, but she felt the strength of her proud and noble ancestry turning her from a young girl into a tiger. "That night I served at the table- when you have the roast with oranges- why did you make your wife leave the room when it was your kids who were at fault?"

            For a split second Katch prepared to answer her as if she were his equal, defending his choice to remove the focal point of the arguments regardless of who was at fault. Then he remembered who he was and who Tielle was. "It's none of your business. Stick to your work," he replied, serious and cold. He was prepared to let this breach of manners go at that.

            But Tielle was not. "I don't understand what's wrong with you! You treat your wife so bad and you don't care about her feelings at all! You don't get along with your grown-up kids and your little kids probably aren't going to turn out any different from them! Why do you think that because you're governor you can be so mean?!"

            Katch felt as though he'd been slapped across the face with a dead fish. He had never experienced direct insubordination on such a scale. He had never expected to experience it at the hands of such a young girl.

            "So, a little fire salamander, are you? I knew you had spunk, but I didn't figure it was of this sort." As he spoke, ideas were forming in his mind over what to do about this. He couldn't allow this attitude to spread or to continue. He would have to take drastic steps. "I suppose you're able to speak this way because I've been too easy on you. I'm too easy on all of you. Now that it comes down to it, I can't see why I was using your people at all- all you are a bunch of sharp-tongued grass snakes who could use to be tempered with a little religion and a lot of civilization! Each and every one of you Sanadians is out of my house as of today. And I know exactly where I want to send you. It's the least I can do so you won't end up exactly like your father."

            She stumbled backward as he approached her. She didn't regret her words, but that didn't stop her from being afraid of their consequences. "Come along," he grabbed her upper arm and yanked her out of the library with him. "I'm taking care of you immediately." She squirmed slightly against his firm grip and allowed the feather duster to fall to the floor.

            Solanne was on the stairs as they passed through the main hall. "What's going on? Did Tielle do something wrong?"

            "I'm just fed up with the way this place is run. All the Sanadian staff will have to be let go." He would not damage his reputation by revealing Tielle's accusations to his wife. "You don't need to cry for her, Solanne. I'm writing a letter of introduction right now to send her to Crystal Valley to stay with my niece's family."

            "It...not...working out?" Solanne ventured timidly.

            "Precisely, Dear," Katch replied, moving on without a backward glance. Tielle turned her silent appeal toward her sister with a long, lingering look over her shoulder.

            Solanne clutched her hands to her chest, but shook her head. She was not so bold as to protest against all hope. She was not even brave enough to speak out loud the one word she mouthed to her sister as she was dragged away. "Good-bye."

 

*********

 

            If she had been asked, Tielle would've had to admit that she had enjoyed the trip from Swansard to Crystal Valley. She had been place in the care of a military adjunct of Bishop Heizan who had been visiting Sanadia before planning to head into Crystal Valley on business. Governor Mercade had been pleased to find someone he could trust to look after Tielle and see that she arrived safely at her destination without having to spare any of his own people.

            Sergeant Mikhail was a large man, in several senses of the word. He appeared to be something of a character in Tielle's opinion. At least he was amusing to look at, with his large nose, thick sideburns, and bushy brown mustache. He was easygoing as well. Tielle seriously doubted whether her brother-in-law would've sent her off with this fellow had he known the full extent of his pleasantly slow pace. Sgt. Mikhail made arrangements for them to ride in a wide military conveyance rather like the carriages Tielle had seen the governor and other high-ranking Harmonians travel about in in Sanadia, except this was about twice the size and was not covered. The two horses pulling it were thick, muscular working types and they were exchanged for fresh ones at each major stop. They shared the space with four other soldiers and a cartographer sporting an enormous feathered hat. Her bag of supplies took up the space of a whole other person.

            Three of the soldiers joked among themselves and chatted with Sgt. Mikhail. The fourth was quieter. Apparently he was being employed as a temporary porter by the cartographer and they whispered over a well-worn map as the cart shook and jolted along. Tielle swung her feet back and forth. Her legs were too short to reach from the seat to the floor. Before they left Swansard, the sergeant had bought her a popsicle- it tasted like melons.

            From Swansard, the trip to Crystal Valley lasted a week and a half. Each night they stopped over in a different town or city. Campanella, Han'Nyac, Beytwain, Teynan, Robinson, Moritt, Gabirol, Senfield, Lizion, and Riverway. The sergeant rambled freely about his three children around Tielle's age, showing her a photograph of two boys and a girl, all blond and smiling. He let her order whatever she wanted wherever they ate and he bough her a turquoise-colored cap outside of a general shop in Campanella to shade her face from the sun shining down into the open conveyance.

            By the time they had reached Riverway, knowing they would be in Crystal Valley the next morning, Tielle was fairly sure that Sarge was, at worst, a neutral party in her deportation to the capital. Perhaps, if she were lucky, he might even turn out to be her friend. "Sarge," she piped up, twirling a long tress of spaghetti around her fork, "You think we can make a deal? I _really_ don't want to go to the Mercades' place. If you take me home with you, I promise I'll be your servant forever! I'll scrub your floor or clean your bathroom or anything! Please!"

            The sergeant was caught in a strange situation. Were Tielle's concerns not so real and pitiable, he would laugh at her desperate gambit, but he knew she was not entirely off the mark. It would be an easier life with his family than with the Mercades. He had seen what the governor had written regarding Tielle, and thus had a decent idea of what she could expect at her destination. It was not a life he would've wished on his own children. He picked hesitantly at his lasagna. She was making him feel guilty. It was hard to claim he was an entirely neutral party in this complex matter. "Let's talk about it later," he sighed. "And not ruin our dinner."

            She was pretty sure she already knew his answer when he ordered the chocolate fudge cake for them to share.

 

            Sergeant Mikhail was impressed by Tielle's demeanor as they approached her new home. She did not cry or plead or whine. She walked alongside him placidly, matching his military pace. If it were up to him he would give in to her and take her home to Beilan...and not as a servant either. But this was Katch's business, not his. If he failed to carry it out, he would be neglecting his duty and breaking a promise.

            "Sarge..." Tielle murmured.

            He restrained himself from reaching out to take her hand and picked up the brass door knocker instead. He wondered why the movement to adopt the children of Third Class Citizens hadn't been larger. Certainly it would work just as well, if not better, in terms of indoctrination and it would breed less resentment. ...Someone higher up must care too much about striking fear and creating an example. "Please forgive me," he entreated her.

            "I do," she groaned. She couldn't hate him for something that hadn't been his idea.

            The large door opened at his knock and the whiteness inside swallowed her up.

 

***

 

            Governor Katch Mercade could only wish to have the kind of control over his household that his niece, Listelle, exercised over hers. After only a week there, Tielle could've sworn that even that pudgy baby of hers wouldn't cry a peep without first asking for permission. Discipline was at such a level that she couldn't help but think the Harmonian military could use more women like Listelle and less men like Sarge. Overwhelmed by all of it, for a while Tielle found herself simply stepping into the rhythm of their rules and schedule without a thought for her recent choice of independence over slavery and Sanadian culture over Harmonian. It had been one thing to fight back when such personal issues as the treatment of her own sister were at stake, but in the Crystal Valley manor, values were more abstract. Even among the expansive class of household help she was the only Sanadian.

            There had been no chance for frivolous talk on her first day, so she had learned this on the first night. Cammi and Lita were from a place called Koliere where their parents picked tealeaves on a plantation. Gesto was from the Tisbahl and was very careful about showing his strict orthodoxy to the Harmonian religion. Tielle didn't know anything about the Tisbahl, but she guessed religion must be something of a sore point there. Verna, Halz, and Keiku were from Le Buque, which she had heard of. Actually, she had mostly overheard of it from Harmonian soldiers who called it "Le Bug" and were pleased for some reason or other not to be serving there. She didn't mention this to the Le Buquens. It wouldn't be tactful. Alfika and Tem were from Tabard. Lacrima came from some place called "Gurste." Nynia, Cal, and the rest came from places she had never heard of and couldn't remember soon after hearing them.

            She learned most of this from Alfika, but none of it mattered now. Alfika said as much.

            "Stop thinking of the place you were born as an independent country," she advised, "And start thinking of it in terms of a city in Harmonia where you just happen to be from."

            So, Swansard, Tielle corrected herself. Not Sanadia. A former capital city turned into a regional seat, not a deceased country. The seat of Katch Mercade's flimsy little occupation government. In the darkness of the dorm-like room, she was sad for the first time over the distance between herself and her homeland. She slept with her cap on, pulling the brim down over her teary eyes, making the enveloping darkness absolute.

 

            Alfika was smart. At least that was what Tielle determined after watching her for a few days. For some reason, Alfika stood out to her among the other kids working in the house. She would've felt more sure of her urge to copy Alfika's behavior if she could've put her finger on why, but at this point, she needed a role model of how to get along in the household if she wasn't going to be constantly slipping up, so she didn't have the luxury of being picky about reasons. Unlike Kiana at the governor's mansion, no adult here seemed poised to take her under their wing. The only adult servant here was a Harmonian gardener, middle-age and irritable, whose chief pleasures appeared to be napping and snitching on any child who bent the restrictions in his presence.

            Listelle Mercade administered most of the rewards and punishments (and inevitably there were far more punishments) herself. She was unrelenting, but her application of her own rules at least was fair.

 

            "Alfika, why are you so happy?"

            "More flour," the redhead said abruptly. Dough was starting to stick to the rolling pin again. Tielle sprinkled on the white powder and awaited her colleagues' answer. "I know the secret to staying myself."

            "Secret?" Just the use of that word made her long to know what Alfika was talking about.

            "Yeah, secret," Alfika repeated herself. "Also, you can just call me 'Al.'"

"Like a boy?"

            "Yeah. Why not?" Alfika shrugged. With the dough spread as flat as it would go, she helped Tielle to cut out all the pieces and then roll them up into crescents for baking.

            "Al, are you a genius?"

            "No, are you kidding me? I'm, like, as dumb as a post. I don't know Hikusaak from a flapjack."

            Tielle held her sides in laughter. She had no idea what Al was talking about now. It was like she was just making up words.

            "Sheesh," Alfika struck a match and leaned in cautiously to light the oven. "It's not that funny."

            Halz poked his head into the kitchen to see what all the noisy merriment was about. That new girl, Tielle, was laughing like an idiot, but she was putting away the flour and Alfika was setting up the oven, so he supposed it wasn't anything worth reporting. Satisfied by his findings, he went back to sweeping the entryway to make sure no one thought he was neglecting his job.

            "Al, tell me your secret."

"No, you'll be stupid and blab it. I can't trust you yet."

            Tielle's nose twitched. What was all that about? She didn't like it, whatever it was. Why couldn't Al trust her? She had made friends easily back at the governor's mansion with Talzian and Kiana. Why did everyone here seem so reticent? It didn't make sense.

            As class-ist as it had obviously been, the governor's household seemed perfectly integrated compared to this place. The servants here, ranging in age from about eight to fifteen, were almost a class apart. Well, she would do her best anyway. Sooner or later, Al would trust her enough to take her into her confidence.

 

            It took Tielle several weeks before she noticed Verna looking at her as she hummed to herself while making her bed and Tem popping in to peek at her as she shined the banisters. It took even longer before she realized why they were doing it. Miz Listelle was obviously offering some sort of incentives for the children to police themselves. And for some reason, probably because of something the governor had written in his letter, no one had told her about it. Maybe that was it- the secret that flitted around the edges of Alfika's knowing smile.

            They ate their breakfast in the pre-dawn darkness. The kitchen was lit by an oil lamp and increasingly by the gradually creeping light of day. "I know one of your secrets, Al," Tielle grinned cheerfully.

            Alfika looked skeptical. This Tielle was a little too spunky for her own good. She was going to get in trouble one of these days just like she had back at her old place. Alfika thought she was very nice and all, but she wasn't prepared to be burned at the stake with someone she had only just met.

            "Everyone here is keeping an eye on each other and everyone is especially keeping an eye on me," Tielle announced, anxious to prove Alfika's skepticism wrong.

            "Mmm, yeah," the redhead replied. "But it's, uh, not my secret. Or even _a_ secret for that matter. It just is."

            "You're not easy to read, Al."

            "Meet me in the library tonight after lights out. Knock on the door just once when you get there. I'll knock back. If there's no return knock, leave. That means something came up."

            "Oh!" Tielle's eyes widened and brightened. "Oh! Okay!" she licked her spoon.

            "Gimme that bowl," Alfika sighed, rushing to leave Tielle and get their dishes in to the kitchen. She couldn't be so obvious about their planning. The walls here had ears and their colleagues were all around them. Even if they mostly appeared involved in their own breakfasts and conversations, one couldn't be sure and it was always better safe than sorry.

            Tielle went around all day with a smile on her face, anxious to see or hear whatever Alfika had to show or tell her. "You swipe a bunch of sugar, Tielle?" Cammi asked in a calculated manner. The beanpole of a girl kept a smile on her face, which left her intent unclear, throwing her target slightly off balance.

            "Why do you think that?"

            "Because all morning you've looked like you had something sweet in your mouth."

            "No, no," she laughed nervously, hoping that she could successfully convince Cammi that it was nothing so she wouldn't be watching her all day. "I'm just happy."

            "What's there to be happy about?"

            "I just...feel good today. That's all." What was Cammi's problem? Why couldn't she believe that?

            "Whatever you say," Cammi shook her head and walked away. Maybe that had convinced her not that Tielle was innocently amused but only sort of stupid, but whatever it took to put an end to her suspicions would have to do.

            Tielle just didn't understand why there was so much hostility among the servants here. There was power in solidarity. Miz Listelle came down the hall, avoiding the damp spaces on that tile that Tem had washed but Tielle had not yet dried. Her son cooed and fussed, pulling on his mother's long hair. "You're settling in, aren't you, Tielle," she said.

            "Yes, Ma'am," the girl agreed blandly, pausing in her rub-dry job to look up at the mistress while she spoke to her.

            "That's good." From her inflection it was almost hard to tell if this was a positive thing to her. Listelle wasn't stupid. _She_ saw the power of solidarity and nipped it in the bud.

            "I was thinking that you might like listening to John Abdul's sound runes. He always brings them out after lunch. When the dishes have been put away, come to the parlor and join us. Tem and Lita are coming too."

            "Umm, okay..." Tielle blinked back her surprise, adding a belated "thanks" to her open-ended comment as the mistress of the household nodded and walked away, her pale blue dress swishing over the floor like the froth of the sea. ...At least as it was presented in most paintings. Tielle had never seen any ocean, though with the way life kept sending her eastward she would bet that laying eyes on the "Eastern Ocean" of (Harmonian) folk song would be likelier than the wide western waters.

 

            "Uhg," Alfika choked back a groan, "You're getting to listen to J.A.'s music? Huh, some honor that is." She felt more at ease to speak her thoughts with the sloshing of dishwater and the clinking plates covering her words.

            "You've heard it before?" Tielle was still usually curious to hear Alfika's opinion of things.

            "Have you even met J.A. yet? Seen him for more than a second?"

            The younger girl shook her head- for the husband of the mistress of the house he was surprisingly inconspicuous. She had heard something from some of the other kids about him spending most of his day at the university, wherever that was. He wore glasses. That was about the entire extent of her knowledge of the nominal master of the house.

            "He's a nobody who married into the Mercade family, you know, no name, like you or me," Alfika began to explain.

            "I have a name!" Tielle cut her off, "It's Sasvenie! You don't, Al?"

            "What? Well, your name's probably worth nothing now. Try and profit off it and they'll look you up and see who you are. If I were you, I'd keep it to myself. It's...got to be a disadvantage...that you were someone _before_. Inhibits your ability to be someone else, someone Harmonian, now."

            "You really didn't have a name before?" Tielle pressed her. Alfika seemed so upset by this matter that it seemed to hint at a personal involvement with the subject.

            "Everyone in Tabard had a name before the rule."

"You mean Harmonian rule?"

            "Well, Tabard has always been part of Harmonia, it's just for a long time nobody cared about it. That it was different. Same as Tisbahl." The short, blunt sentences rolled neatly off her tongue. "Then there was a big expansion movement and the Harmonian bigwigs suddenly thought, "Why're we spending so much time conquering the west," like Sanadia, I guess, "when we could be developing places we've already got?" So new stuff came to Tabard. And they revoked the use of all the local occupation names."

            "What was yours?"

            "I never had one. They were all done and gone before I was born." Alfika looked wistfully into the soapy water, then turned back to Tielle. Her brown eyes were sharp as she gave away her deepest secret. "But my father's name was 'Bard.'"

            "Could you guys possibly work any slower?" Tem popped in. "Geez Tielle, the master and mistress are waiting for you."

            "Oh!" she remembered, suddenly snapped back into reality after her dalliance in the world of Alfika's cultural memory. "The sound runes!" She tactfully managed not to add aloud anything about how Alfika had not gotten around to telling her what was so bad about them.

            Tem tapped his fingers impatiently on the doorframe. "I can finish up for you," Alfika offered, "You may be the nosiest kid this side of the river, but I'm the one who rambles."

            "Really? Oh, thank you!" Tielle smiled, tossing her towel onto the counter and hurrying off after Tem. Watching him wait had been making her uncomfortable. And it was a bad idea to make the people who'd invited her to listen wait for her.

 

            If Listelle and John Abdul were annoyed by the delay, they did not show it like Tem did. Lita too was waiting calmly, seated by the rudimentary listening device on a red cushion. Tem joined her, plucking a raspberry-colored pillow off the couch to sit on. "Hi, Tielle," John Abdul greeted her. He had a soft voice. Beside his tall, imposing wife, he appeared meek and mousy. "I'm John Abdul." She wondered if that mean she could address him as such without risking a scolding. "Ever seen a gramophone before?"

            "That's what it's called?"

            The wooden box part had a slot for a scored sound rune orb and a metal cone like a hollow ram's horn leading up with the larger end pointed outwards. John Abdul opened a padded suitcase and picked out a yellow sound orb labeled with precise Harmonian letters. He placed it in the slot on the gramophone and wound the crank on the side to get the machine going. He sat back down on the padded bench beside a large xylophone and gesture for Tielle to come sit beside him as the music crackled to a start. There were several hiccups in the recording as the orchestra started up, but by the time a strong female voice had joined in the mix the technical issues seemed to have been hammered out.

            Tielle shivered at the high notes that woman had been capable of producing. She had never heard music like this before. It was vibrant and strange and almost scary compared to the music she knew better. Tielle knew folk music- Sanadian, guitar-accompanied, foot-tapping stuff and Harmonian, mandolin-accompanied, singsong stuff- she knew the light choral melodies of Harmonian church music and their somber chants in that land's old tongue, and she had also heard some of her sister's melancholy piano playing (she couldn't claim to know whether its roots were Harmonian, Sanadian, or something else entirely). But the volatile and emotional style of Harmonian opera was different from all of these things. She couldn't understand a word of it (it was all in that fancy Middle Harmonian theater dialect "palateri"), but it was beautiful.

            "That's Sonja Vanyana," John Abdul explained as the recording ran down, the orchestra fading out and the crackles and pops starting up again. Listelle opened her eyes. She had closed them as they listened, immersing herself in the story of the song. "She's the star of the local opera house these days."

            "Why don't you tell Tielle the story, Lita?" John Abdul encouraged the pig-tailed girl.

            Lita bit her nails, then looked embarrassed to have been caught in such a state and tucked her fingers between her knees. "It's Sana Poma- the, uh, character. She's a tea merchant's daughter and she's in love with a crusader knight. He went to the northern front and, um, disappeared. And so his rival, the head of another tea company, says he's dead and she should marry him. But she doesn't love him. She had to decide if she's gonna do it," she paused awkwardly and glanced at John Abdul for assurance, "Right?"

            "Right," he smiled back at her. "I think you've almost got all of them committed to memory."

            "I...I would like to see an opera someday," Lita whispered. Secretly she also held a desire to sing on stage like that, but how could she reveal that wish to anyone here? She was shy and untrained- it was a foolish fantasy.

            "Sana Poma," Tielle repeated, trying to put the strange name to memory. "So, uh," she couldn't help but ask how the story turned out, "Does she do it?"

            John Abdul cocked his head toward her curiously.

"You know, marry the guy she doesn't love?"

            Listelle chuckled to herself. How naive this poor girl was! Of course she did. This was opera!

            "Yes," John Adbul answered happily, "She does. But then she finds out her knight is still alive. After she tries to run away the knight two men end up dueling and killing each other."

            "Wow. What a downer."

            "It's more artistic that way," Tem said, acting like he was suddenly some expert on the arts. "You know, moving and all."

            Tielle resisted the urge to make a face at him because of the presence of the Mercades. Tem was no artist- at least not a high-brown one. She'd heard him singing some pretty bawdy tavern songs while watering the rose bushes. She'd also seen his drawings, and boy, there was a fascination with tiny waists and large breasts if she'd ever seen one. Yuck.

            "Did you like it, Tielle?"

"Y-yeah, I did. It was...like magic with sounds."

            "Well, let's listen to one more before we all get back to work, shall we?" John Abdul smiled. Of all of them, he himself seemed most eager to hear more.

            "Maybe a waltz instead?" Listelle suggested. "Frederic is sleeping in the next room and I'm afraid that such boisterous singing will wake him up."

            "As you wish, my dear," he acquiesced, selecting the "Royal Highland Waltz" for them to hear next.

            Tielle pondered the strange marriage of brutality and sophistication Harmonia seemed to possess. Perhaps Sanadia had held complexities of this sort, but she had never known them. A conquered land was a bit simpler than a conquering one. In an impromptu history lesson held over the hanging of laundry one day, Miz Listelle had spoken of the formation of the Kingdom of Highland, whose first king, Maroux, was honored by this song. It sounded like a child state that honored its parent in many ways. However, in Highland, there were no official strata demarcating the social classes. There were no Third Class Citizens.

 

            She spent the rest of the afternoon caught up in the spell of the music (why had Alfika not liked it?) and almost forgot about her planned meeting with Alfika. Fortunately the memory came back to her in time and she held her breath for half the way there, feeling that despite her tiptoeing there was no way to be quiet enough to be safe. It was only after a period of nervous hesitation that she gathered the nerve to knock.

            There was no reply.

            She listened at the door to see if she could hear Alfika coming. She did hear someone, but they sounded too heavy to be the other girl. Thinking fast, she ducked into the shadows by the stairs. The door opened and revealed John Abdul in his nightclothes. He peeked curiously out, confused by the noise he had heard. Tielle was afraid for a moment that he would catch her just by how loud her heart was beating. However, luck was on her side. John Abdul shook his head, knowing he had heard _something_, but assuming he had been mistaken over its source. When he closed the door, Tielle breathed again, letting out a long sigh of relief.

            "J.A. screwed everything up last night," Alfika shrugged when approached about their inability to meet up the night before. That was all she had to say about the matter. Tielle had expected a little further comment on the subject, but she wasn't about to pester Al over it. "We can try again tomorrow."

            "Okay." There was a coolness in Al's voice that turned her away from making frivolous inquiries of any kind that day. It would be a bad time to ask what it was about the sound runes that Al thought was so bad, for instance.

            For whatever reason, Al's ill temper carried throughout the rest of the day. Tielle wasn't present to see it, but at some point Alfika sassed back to Miz Listelle and lost the privilege of a roll with her dinner. In such a bitter mood to begin with, Tielle doubted Al was severely stung by the punishment, but she at least had the forethought to keep from expressing her indifference too sharply in front of the mistress.

            Cammi and Lita, on the other hand, snitched on the gardener for stealing a wheel of cheese from the pantry and gained themselves some meat to accompany their meal. Tielle could feel the saliva accumulating in her mouth as she watched them eat the chicken that had been added to their plates. She had never seen anyone do anything that had merited an upgrade to their meal before. She was already beginning to wonder what she could do to spice up her bland vegetarian fare.

            "Guh, I'm so jealous," Tem complained, "It's not like either of them are so great. It was just a big fat matter of being at the right place at the right time."

            "Isn't that half of what there is to life?" Al quipped.

"I hear ya, Al," he agreed.

            "Honestly!" Lita scoffed in reply to their grumbling. "Some people!" she turned up her nose, looking rather like a bad impression of Miz Listelle. It did nothing to show up her colleagues and only left her looking snotty.

            Tielle tried not to let it get her down. She had to stay focused on the possibilities of better times ahead. She might get to listen to more opera... She hoped that Al would be in a better mood by the time they tried to sneak into the library again.

            Their next opportunity was also foiled as Alfika somehow got herself into enough trouble to be sent to the shed for the night. Maybe Al wasn't as smart as she had originally thought. ...Of course, since she seemed to be bringing all this upon herself and she didn't appear upset by any of it, it was hard to say. Maybe it was some kind of strategy, although Tielle couldn't see what following through with it would accomplish. She didn't want to ask either. It wouldn't be wise to be seen tagging along with Al when the mistress' attention was directed so squarely toward her.

            Then she had some doubts about avoiding Al. Self-preservation wasn't the same as selling out, right? She wasn't becoming Harmonian by staying clear of Al. She was still herself, Tielle Sasvenie.

 

            She knocked and heard the tapped answer. The inside of the library was dark, but Alfika had brought an oil lamp. The tiny flame flickered against the gray of the night that enveloped the house at this hour. "C'mere," Alfika beckoned her friend over to the low table. She had a large book spread open. It took up almost half the table. "Take a look."

            It was an atlas, open to the west-central area of Harmonia that included Tabard and Tisbahl. "See, this is Tabard. And I was born here," she placed her finger on a small spot labeled, "Filgard."

            "So...you come to the library to look at Tabard on a map to remind yourself of home?" Tielle asked, sitting down alongside her friend.

            "Sometimes," she said quietly, flipping the pages until she found a two-page spread of Sanadia. "I just like looking at the atlas every so often. But mostly I just read. They have so many books here and I never have a chance to read unless I sneak up here."

            "So, reading it your secret to staying yourself."

            "Yeah, because it reminds me that there's a whole big world out there beyond this place. Thinking about home and thinking about all those things out there beyond my experience helps me keep things in perspective. And," she grinned, an eerie glow cast on her shining teeth by the small lamp, "Best of all, you can read from this." She slipped away across the room to a stepladder, climbed up and came back down with a green-covered volume: _Alternate Worldviews: Observations on the Cultures and Histories within Our Borders_. "The guy who wrote this thing went all over Harmonia and asked people to tell him their stories- about their family, local legends, anything. And he put it all down here, whether it was mundane or heretical or sounded like an out and out lie."

            "What a weird book."

            "Except for the fact that there isn't any music in it, it's a lot like a bard's work- like something one of my ancestors might've done." She sighed dreamily, all of her unhappy resistance vanishing to be superseded by fantasies of the life she longed to lead.

            "Do you want to tell stories, Al? If you could, would you be a bard when you get your freedom?"

            "I'd love that more than anything."

"Then you need to practice," Tielle told her friend matter-of-factly.

            Alfika seemed a bit taken aback at first, but she quickly regained her footing, putting the book down on top of the atlas and clearing her throat. "Okay, I have to do this quietly so no one else hears, but I am going to do a dramatic recitation with you as my audience. My dad taught me this when I was half as big as you."

            Tielle was caught between the impulse to give Alfika her full attention and the desire to start reading, but as Alfika continued on, Tielle found herself sucked into the strange story her friend was telling. She hadn't expected Al to be so good. It wasn't like there was anyone to pass this craft onto her here and she hadn't seen her parents in eight years. She just remembered what she had seen and heard back in Tabard almost perfectly and had practiced the songs and stories over and over again in her mind. She didn't need to become a bard later, Tielle realized. Al was already one now.

 

            The trips to the library added considerably to Tielle's inner landscape. Even when she didn't meet up there with Alfika, she occasionally snuck in alone, burying herself in the books. At first she felt her mind move slowly through the words as if they were molasses. Reading was not a priority skill in a servant of her stature and lack of use had atrophied what little advanced vocabulary she possessed before coming to Crystal Valley. Governor Mercade hadn't cared much what sort of information the people around him took in, but Miz Listelle liked to ration the knowledge her servants received. Too much knowledge in a Third Class Citizen was, at worst, dangerous. At its most mild, it would only manage to make them unhappy.

            Fortunately, most of the books were in the standard regional tongue, not the literary Middle Harmonian, and she was able to prevail upon the dictionary to assist her in reading the words here and there that eluded her. The most nerve-wracking aspect of using the Mercades’ library was not actually a fear of being caught inside it, but of being found out during the daytime hours by not putting something back properly. Tielle was sure that if Miz Listelle knew she was sneaking in here to read she wouldn't go halfway with her punishment. The library would be locked up and something worse would happen to her than anything she had seen happen to any of her colleagues so far- she wasn't sure what that could be, but she just knew it would be bad.

            Reading was sparking her imagination again. Just the extra mental stimulation was enough to brighten her world. She read about opera and had to force herself to keep her newfound expertise a secret from John Abdul when all she wanted to do was discuss plots with him and regale him with the new wealth of facts overflowing from her mind. She read about the Harmonian expansion movement and looked up Rumei Rimsky, memorizing everything it said about him in hopes she could recite it all back to Talzian someday. She read poems and during the day as she worked she twisted the words to make stinging little parodies of the lives of pig-nosed Astalia and the drunken bumbler Domionne. It would be too risky to joke about Miz Listelle and everyone else here, even in her mind. The consequences of stupidly allowing even one comment to leak out were just too great. If she said something acerbic about the governor's children, no one but the mistress would know who she was talking about and Tielle had already been happy to overhear Listelle complaining about what "worthless losers" her cousins were.

            Previously, Tielle had considered her move to the house in Crystal Valley as a harsh punishment for having challenged the governor's authority, but as the winter holidays of the Harmonian calendar rolled around, there came some interesting hints of a silver lining to this modest existence. Miz Listelle took all the festivities to heart and allowed every member of her household some limited participation in all of them. So, for the Lantern Festival there were long sticks of white sugar candy and a dignified procession in the evening down to the closest river, which was little more than a stream cutting through the Fountain District, to watch as John Abdul and many other residents of the valley lit tiny red and white candles and set them adrift in folded paper boats.

            Tielle wondered if the governor was too apathetic or irreligious to celebrate these days or if he did engage in such activities, just didn't let his servants in on it.

            On the winter's solstice, John Abdul tapped out some tunes on his xylophone and everyone was treated to a cup of hot chocolate. Foundation Day and New Year's Day went similarly. Tielle tried her hardest to savor the good parts of these days and ignore the less appealing parts- the tedious visits to the near-by church (it was too much trouble for Miz Listelle to drag everyone off to services every week, so the church-going of all the help but Lita and Gesto, who showed the greatest interest in it, was limited to around once a month) and the long lecture from the mistress on the significance of what they were doing that day for the holy day. Tielle never really knew what all of it was about, and since the other kids didn't seem lost, she figured someone had left out a crucial piece of her basic Harmonian theology lecture. It was all tradition this and saints that and some such about the "mark of heaven's fortune." A couple of the saint stories could be good because they were bizarre or exciting, but since most of the lecture material was not, she simply tuned it out and daydreamed.

            She thought about her mother, proudly resisting the invitation to go live with Solanne and her husband, or walking the long road to the hidden Sirasol shrine to light incense for the sun god in the privacy of that moist, mushroom-pocked cave. Tielle would've been embarrassed to have her mother find out that while she only emptily mimed the gestures of Harmonian faith, she had sort of allowed the beliefs of her ancestors to slip away from her as well. She tried to excuse herself, pointing out how young she had been when she had left her mother, but seeing the way Alfika recalled so much of her early childhood with apparent precision, she felt as if she were underachieving somehow.

 

            Some of the pleasure that entered into Tielle's life continued as the cluster of holidays drifted past. On occasion she was still given an opportunity to listen to John Abdul's sound runes and she snuck into the library at least weekly. She had never slipped up badly enough to merit any punishment that was worse than one she had received at the governor's house, but she was growing to understand better and better the extremes that things ran to here. If a reward or a punishment elicited a certain response, would not a great reward or punishment elicit a greater response?

            "Tem, what's the worst punishment you ever saw anyone get around here?" He seemed to enjoy secretly watching as punishments were handed out, so Tielle guessed he would be as good as anyone to ask about this matter.

            "Well..." he drawled out the word, thinking good and hard about his answer, "Once, I saw Miz Listelle take off her shoe and smack a girl with it. But just once. So, I guess... No. There was something worse. A lot worse." He had looked cheerful as he discussed the shoe incident, so Tielle knew that something that could bring a shadow to Tem's ruddy face had to be bad. Really bad.

            "When I first got here there was a young guy. He had some sorta pox scars on his face. The master and mistress had had a lot of trouble with him as far as I could tell. I couldn't tell you why. But he was half-Karayan or somethin' and a real firecracker of a guy. One spark was all it took to get him to explode. The others who are gone now, some, uh, teenaged kids, they told me that a million different things had been tried on him, but he wouldn't ever break. He said he spoke to the spirits of the land and they kept him in touch with his homeland. Seemed kind of loony, if you ask me, but I didn't know him so well. Okay, so the point of this story is that they send this guy away to 'the pit.'"

            Tielle tossed the last weed into the bag and pulled the top closed so Tem could tie it off to leave for the gardener to take care of. "Okay...Uh, Tem, as crazy as that whole story sounds, I think it would be a lot more meaningful if I actually knew what this "pit" was."

            "Ehm," he grunted, straining to pull the twine as tight as possible. "There. Uh, "the pit." It's a really notorious mining operation up north. A lot of people die working in it."

            "Err, okay."

 

            When she wanted to ask the opposite question, she turned to Alfika one night in the library. "What's the best reward you've ever seen anyone get here?"

            "Did I ever tell you about my older brother? He was, well, he still is, I suppose, a first class suck-up. He wasn't just obedient like we're trying to be, he was fawning and he threw himself into everything Harmonian without ever looking back. He asked so many questions about Harmonia's history that they gave him a schoolbook to read about it."

            Alfika's face was bright with pain and frustration as she recounted these events. Tielle began to feel less ashamed of her sister for her decisions in light of this comparison. Solanne had been looking back. She was so sad. "So it made him happy to change his identity like that?"

            "As far as I could tell. He did his best to try and make me change with him. He even changed his name to... 'Paul Stephen.'"

            "Ooh, that's really Harmonian," Tielle winced. She thought Alfika would continue on from this point, but instead she lapsed into an unhappy silence, forcing her to push for a conclusion to this unhappy tale. "So, what happened to him? Where is he now?"

            "When he turned sixteen, he asked Miz Listelle for a letter of recommendation to be accepted into the seminary, so J.A. wrote him one and they took him in.

            "I don't know if he's become a priest yet or not, but I don't want to hear anything about him anymore. He became the complete opposite of me. I want to preserve the culture of Tabard and he wants to erode it."

            Tielle frowned. It didn't sound as if it were necessarily as simple as that, but she could understand Al's sorrow over her brother and his perceived treachery. If Paul Stephen had been her brother, she might've felt the same way, but....what about the possibility of a legitimate conversion? The lessons Alfika had gleaned from her life had led her to discount such things, but Tielle was younger and more uncertain. Had Paul Stephen compromised or had he been transfigured?

 

            The aftereffects of the holiday treats were beginning to work on Tielle. Now that she had had them, she missed them. Miz Listelle was a bright woman, it seemed.

            Tem turned sixteen that spring. Alfika would be the next one. A sixteen-year-old was an adult, and thus was legally free to decide where, within the restrictions placed on the movement of Third Class Citizens, they would like to go. Although in theory Listelle could keep Tem on as a hired hand if he were interested, she had a policy of not hanging onto any of the young servants after they came of age whether she had liked them or not. If they wanted to carry on in a Harmonian household she would try and find them a connection with another noble family within the capital. Tem had been good, if a little raucous, so it was assumed the lady of the house would put in a good word for him if wherever he was going would require it.

            "Where to, Tem?" Alfika asked as he packed his single bag one spring morning.

            "Home." He filled the single word with all the soft, hopeful emotion that came from eight years of longing. With that one word all the young servants connected momentarily with Tem in a deeper way than ever before. Here there were so many reasons to remain apart, but the existence of another life in another almost mythic land, a "home" united all of them.

            "I don't know what I'm gonna do there. I guess I'll just track down my dad and go from there, but I'm tired of being as Miz Lis' beck and call. It's time to be my own man."

            As he left that afternoon, traveling back to Tabard alongside John Abdul, Tem ceased to be a slightly gross and irritable boy; he became a memory and a myth.

            "You'll go home to Filgard when you turn sixteen, won't you?" Tielle asked Al a few days later.

            "Of course."

"You won't forget me, will you?"

            "No way! Of course not, Ti. You're my favorite person I've met since leaving home. And in Tabard, you know there's this saying: "All girls are sisters." So, I hope when I'm gone, you can look back on these times and remember me as a good big sister."

            How could she have harbored any doubts? Al might be flighty or incomprehensible, but she really was like an older sister to Tielle. She really was a genius.

 

***

 

            In the heat of summer, Tielle thought more frequently of her home. It wasn't as dry here, but it did get as hot. The gardener was fired over his sticky fingers. He left claiming his innocence, saying over and over that Cammi and Lita had set him up, but Miz Listelle was too tired of him to listen to his complaints. It was easier just to let him go. She had enough help around the house anyway, even without him.

            Little Frederic learned his first few words and could be heard yelling, "Mama!" if he woke up and could not locate his mother. Some idle conversation in the dorm room centered around whether he would turn out to be more like his mother or father.

            Seized by some whimsical muse, John Abdul took to playing his instruments- the large xylophone, a mandolin, and a selection of woodwinds- for several hours upon his afternoon return from the university grounds as he tried his hand at some composition. The repetitive melodies often mesmerized Tielle into working in time with them without even being aware of it until someone showed up and laughed at what she was doing.

            Everything was so easy. Even Miz Listelle seemed somewhat loosened up by the cheery weather and the music in the air. She opened more windows to let the breeze rustle through the house and invited friends over for tea on the back lawn. Tielle liked the turn things were taking. With the mistress less ready to lash out with scoldings for her servants, the servants in turn became less likely to speak out against each other. An era of good feelings seemed to have descended on them along with the scented summer air. Perhaps the too-good set of circumstances should've warned Tielle that something would soon be upon them to unsettle this temporary truce, but she had never been the type to worry much about what was around the corner. The life she had been dealt was a life where it was most advantageous to move forward one day at a time. Her only real concern was what she would do once Al went home in autumn.

 

            Eisa was practicing her hair-cutting and style skills on anyone who would let her near them with a pair of scissors. Alfika shied away, but Tielle's hair was beginning to brush her shoulders and she preferred to keep it short. If Eisa chopped it a little too far in the back or left the bangs uneven, Tielle didn't really mind. Her hair wasn't especially important to her. She just wanted it in a style that wouldn't make her too hot.

            Gesto had climbed from his bunkbed into an upper window in the room to look out at the stone street beyond the house's neat front garden. A similarly sized manor sat across the way, painted shades of lavender and vanilla like a sugary teacake. The lady of the house was a friend of Listelle's, with a daughter about the same age as Frederic. They were situated in one of the quietest parts of the city, far removed from the bustle of the Temple and Market Districts. A pair of off-duty Temple guards chatted as they passed by on their way home.

            "Anything interesting out there?" Cal called up, steadily working on mending a pair of his socks.

            "Nah, 't's quiet as always."

            "There ya go!" Eisa brushed some loose tresses off Tielle's shoulders. "Al, pass me that mirror." A chipped hand mirror quickly changed hands from Alfika to Eisa and then to Tielle. "So, whaddya think?"

            "Hey, that's alright. Thanks, Eisa."

            "You're welcome. I'm getting a lot of scissor practice now that I've taken over clipping the hedges."

            "She's still not touching my head," Lita remarked, "Not unless Cammi lets her do hers first."

            "I think not," Cammi quipped.

            "Hey!" Gesto gasped, but no one seemed to hear him. Cammi got up to go see if the laundry on the line was dry enough to fold up and take in yet. "Hey, you guys!" the boy repeated himself more forcefully.

            "What's your deal now, Gesto?" Halz asked. Even with the usual restrictions eased up, the three from Le Buque were incredibly quiet and withdrawn compared to their peers.

            "There is something!" he waved his hands frantically, "Miz Listelle got out of a carriage and is coming up to the house with a little dark-haired girl!"

            "Is it a relative here to visit with her?"

"No, it must be one of us," Alfika insisted.

            "Keep describing!" Cammi ordered Gesto, turning around in the doorway to hear what would come of this new arrival.

            "She's, uh, tiny," he began to have trouble speaking at the pressure of so many combined expectations was placed on him. "A funny sticking-out ponytail and pink cheeks. Sort of tannish, but not too much, maybe like Tielle. Or, uh, something. They're too close to the door now. I can't see anymore." He struggled to edge his way back into the bunk without falling to the floor. Everyone understood the general meaning of this, hurrying to act as if they were unaware of Miz Listelle's return to the house, and certainly of the new arrival. Cammi rushed off to see to the laundry. Eisa put away her scissors and comb. Keiku took out a dust rag and went down the hall while Verna straightened her rumpled bed. Sooner or later the mistress would finish up explaining the basics of the situation to this new girl and she would leave her off in the servants' quarters to learn the ropes from her new colleagues.

            When Tielle first laid eyes on the messy-haired pixie she felt her sympathies go out to the girl, who promptly introduced herself as being Kitanya, seven-years-old, and born in Sanadia. For Tielle, that description just about did it. She knew how she would cope with Alfika's departure. She would take Kitanya under her wing and try out being the big sister for once. They would be able to talk about Sanadia together. Maybe Kitanya was from Swansard too and she would have some updated information about things in the capital. Maybe if Tielle turned out to be really lucky, Kitanya would even know some of the people she had known. Was it too much to hope for to dream that Kitanya might have news of her mother?

            Tielle was not the only one to warm quickly to the tiny girl. In general, everyone seemed enamored of her to some degree and went to many efforts to make her transition manageable. She had only just been taken away from her mother and grandmother immediately before being sent with several other children to Crystal Valley. Her misty-eyed references to the home and hearth she had so recently lost stirred the thoughts of many of the others toward the families they had been forced to leave behind.

            Kitanya worked on their emotions in other ways too. Alfika and Tielle soon found she was too short to wash dishes unless she stood on an overturned pail. "Thank you," she politely replied to everything they did for her and showed Tielle her loose tooth. She was so cute- how could anyone bear to send this child off to labor so far from home? Tielle imagined that mother and grandmother of hers must be mourning her loss at that very moment.

            When she was hungry at night, feeling that the small meal hadn't filled her growing stomach sufficiently, Cammi and Lita took it upon themselves to both give her a portion of their dinners. "Here you go, Kitty," Lita passed the food over to her. "Don't feel bad. We don't want you sitting up hungry in bed tonight."

            "You know, it's scary to leave home, but all of you have been so nice to me," Kitanya squealed.

            "I have a feeling any one of us might do something stupid and get our hide tanned for this girl's sake," Alfika remarked coolly to Tielle. Tielle was about to take exception to Al's strange tone, but as she looked around the room and accessed the softness showing in faces that had been sternly set against her about a year before, she knew Alfika spoke the truth.

 

            The night before Alfika's departure from the house, they sat on the couch in the library reflecting on the times they had spent together. Tielle found that knowing she would not see Al again for at least five years, if ever, gave her courage to bring up subjects she had shied away from before. And Al, out of the same welling up of feeling associated with her imminent farewell, readily answered her.

            "You never told me why you don't like John Abdul's music."

            "Well, it's weird and creepy, but I don't really like any of that Harmonian music. It's warping the unique musical traditions of the bards in Tabard. And probably in other places like Sanadia too."

            "And what about that time you got in trouble and had to sleep in the shed? Why were you acting so strange then?"

            "My brother sent a note saying he wanted to come by and talk to everyone about his "journey of faith" or something. Well, I couldn't let him do that, so I stole a stamp off another envelope and wrote back to him pretending to be Miz Lis so he wouldn't come, but, well, she obviously found out. But he didn't end up coming anyway, so it was worth it."

            "You're so intense, Al. ...Just because you believe all that stuff, don't let it make you do something stupid the moment you get home. I don't want to go looking for Alfika Bard someday and get told she was hung for sedition the day after she got home."

            "Of course not. What kind of big sister would I be if I did that? Seriously, Tielle, you take care of yourself too. I want to see you again someday."

            "Stop talking so tough and just give me a hug!"

 

***

 

            With Alfika gone, Tielle tried to form a new role for herself as Kitanya's "sister." She taught her how to light the stove and the best way to fit all the plates safely into the cupboard. With all those tasks, she did what Alfika had done with her- she watched and listened, trying to see if the time was right to sneak Kitanya up to the library and let her in on her secret.

            How had Al known that she would be a loyal ally? Did it have something to do with all the questions she had pestered her with starting on her very first day at the manor? It didn't look like she would be able to use the same criteria in making her own decision. Kitanya was a quiet girl. If she had the same sort of fire in her stomach as Tielle did, it was impossible to tell.

            Maybe she was a bad choice as a confidant. She took easily to her nickname: "Kitty." It was a name imbued with Harmonian sensibilities and favored by Miz Listelle. Listelle and John Abdul both held a soft spot in their hearts for this girl even though she never appeared to do anything especially favorable in the traditional sense of mistress-servant interactions like Cammi or Lita, the biggest tattletales in the house. She just went about tending to her work to the best of her abilities and generally being irresistibly cute.

            "Do you think about your mom very often, Kitty?" Tielle tested the waters of the younger girl's connection to her home. She knew that she might be stirring up painful memories by asking, but at this point she was thinking more about her own selfish desires than Kitty's feelings. She needed to know how attached Kitty was to her homeland before she could comfort her with their shared connections to it.

            "Everyday," Kitty answered. "She kept the first two teeth I lost in a box with her jewelry. She told me she'd trade me a copper coin for the next one I lost."

            "Wow, money for a tooth? I could've made a fortune that day Kiana accidentally smacked me with the cupboard door and knocked three of my loose teeth out."

            Kitty giggled and tried to stifle her laughter by pulling the sheet up over her face. "That must've hurt!"

            "Well, it was really more shocking than anything else. And kind of gross. I hate the taste of blood in my mouth."

            "I don't think anyone likes that."

            Now things were sounding better. She really had wanted to take a chance on Kitanya. If all girls were sisters, how much more would two countrywomen find in common? "Tomorrow night after lights out, wait for about fifteen minutes to see that everyone's falling asleep and then, if the coast looks clear, go up the stairs and wait for me outside the library- you know which room that is, don't you?"

            "The one that's always closed. Right next to the linen closet."

"Yeah. So will you be there?"

            "Mmm...okay."

            Tielle leaned back and closed her eyes. A little hesitation was to be expected. She remembered how nervous she had been sneaking up the stairs to meet up with Alfika for the first time.

            The following evening Tielle lay in bed pretending to sleep but all too conscious of her upcoming appointment with Kitanya. She had smuggled a small lamp from the storeroom into her things and left it sitting temporarily in her slipper, but she had forgotten to take a match. She hoped she would be able to see well enough in the kitchen by the light of the moon to grope her way into the drawer where the big box of them was kept. She heard the creak of someone rising from their bed and forced herself to fight the urge to peek and see if it was Kitanya stealing off toward the library or just someone else getting up to go in search of a drink of water or the bathroom.

            Okay. That was long enough, wasn't it? She opened her eyes. The room was quiet. Keiku was mumbling in her sleep as she rolled around, tangling her arms and legs up in the sheets like a fly stuck in a spider's web. She looked next to the bed beside hers. It was empty. Kitanya had gone on ahead just as she had agreed to. Now she couldn't rush this. Act cool. Act natural. Don't do anything suspicious, she instructed herself. Things had been easier when she was following Alfika's lead. Knowing she was in charge and would have to take responsibility if anything went wrong made her tense. Had Alfika been nervous when they went to the library together?

            "Ten, nine, eight," Tielle counted down in her head until she finally, slowly stood up. She took the lamp out of her slipper and replaced it with her foot, shuffling into the kitchen and squinting until her eyes adjusted enough to dig up a match without stabbing or skewering herself on anything. She did not light the lamp yet. It was only to be used in the library so as not to accidentally draw any unnecessary attention.

            As she took to the stairs she could see Kitty standing beside the door, her wide eyes giving off a strange reflective glow in the dark. "Hey," she whispered to the younger girl. "Hold this," she passed the match to Kitty as she reached to open the door.

            Inside was darkness, thick and surrounding, keeping every object tightly clasped to its bosom. She stepped inside and took the match back from Kitty, who made no move to follow her in. Her eyes were adjusting as she struck the match against the doorframe and lit the lamp.

            "Lovely night for some light reading, wouldn't you agree, Tielle?" Listelle Mercade commented softly. She had been sitting on the couch in the dark. She did not appear to have been sleeping. There were only the faintest marks of fatigue on her ivory face. She had been waiting.

 

            The consequences of her discovery fell thick and fast. The library was given a lock (she saw John Abdul mumbling to himself in complaint as he searched his pockets for the key). Her meals suffered (courtesy of Cammi's insistence on following the mistress' commands to the letter). Once again, every eye fell on Tielle. Her meager belongings were searched to prove she had not stolen anything from the manor (she hadn't) and all the other servants strove to prove their loyalty by cracking down on one another and especially on Tielle. This was the only solidarity to be found in the Mercade home. The unity of the many oppressed against the one of their own who had been singled out for punishment. Miz Listelle saw how to move them so well.

            The only doubt that remained in Tielle's mind was over Kitty. Had it been a coincidence that they had been caught that night, or had she told? Kitty never gave her a chance to ask. It was a bad sign. She had depended too much on the bond of countrymen and had been let down. She was too naive. Better to believe a Harmonian who had proved themself than a Sanadian who hadn't.

            She felt her mind closing again, locked into the tiny world of the manor. There would be no second chances taken on the library. They never asked again if she would like to hear the sound runes. After some length of time she had spent quiet and cold, even the mistress showed some concern and made an offer of some heartier meals with meat in exchange for a smile a less than empty involvement in her work, but Tielle would no longer allow herself to be swayed by this argument and turned down the prize, saying (and deciding at that very moment) she was a vegetarian.

            By the time she made it home she might not be a proper Sanadian any longer, but she swore to herself she would never be taken for a Harmonian.

 

***

 

            When all the years of servitude had dwindled down to their inevitable end on her sixteenth birthday, no one even asked Tielle where she was going. None of the ones who had come after could have possibly cared. She barely knew them. She barely spoke to them. Kitanya was never called anything but "Kitty" anymore.

            The atmosphere was muted. Outside of the manor, times were changing and through tiny cracks and crevices, that change came in.

            "Here are your papers, Tielle," Listelle placed a roll of yellowed documents in her hand as they stood by the western gate awaiting the military transport she had suggested to carry her home the same way she had come.

            "I wrote ahead to the local office of the Bureau of Third Class Citizens, so don't dally. You'll be written up as illegally out of area if you don't check in with them in Swansard within two weeks," Listelle told her.

            She was still taller than Tielle, but they stood as equals, with backs straight and faces proud as they awaited the arrival of the open-roofed carriage. When it came, they shook hands before Tielle climbed aboard. "Best of luck," the lady of the house bid her quietly.

            "Thanks," the girl responded. She wondered if she had ever thanked Listelle before. For some reason she just couldn't remember.

 

*********

 

            Rumei Rimsky, larger than life. He was the first thing she saw upon returning to Swansard. The roads no longer bore the scars of his earth-shaking handiwork, having been repaired and repatched by a team of expert earth manipulators and engineers in the seven years Tielle had been away, but now the man himself stood in the central square in a dark bronze. His hair was swept by an imaginary wind over his shoulders and his left hand was raised not in the gesture of benediction so common in Harmonian statues, but in his traditional magic-casting wave. It was a testament to the power of the occupation government that the bronze Rimsky was not defaced daily. It was still too soon for Tielle to see how thoroughly her people had broken.

            Her memories of how to reach her first home were understandably fuzzy, and it didn't help that there had been plenty of rebuilding and cleaning up of the old capital since she left. The improved garrison Governor Mercade had planned to have built was finished and it appeared, half-barracks half-castle, at the western joint of the main wall, built out of red sandstone and topped with a decadent array of Harmonian banners. The shanty houses had been cleared away and replaced with average houses and shops of sandstone and wood. She walked leisurely down the main thoroughfare, passing soldiers, messengers, a quartet of traveling buskers, and a whole variety of Sanadian citizens- old folk, women with small children, calm or resigned-looking men going about their day's work. The only groups ill-represented were adolescents and older children. The majority of them were probably abroad, either in bondage as she had been, or out of a desire to move up the social hierarchy and make the most of life in this strange new world. She couldn't blame all of them. People were weak, but they were also adaptable. They would fight the everyday battles to gain their small shares of happiness and would be content with only half of what their forefathers had claimed. If there was anything she had learned from the young misfits and outcasts she had worked alongside all these years, it was that people were infinitely varied and interesting.

            She took a right in front of an unfamiliar florist's shop and caught sight of a church's spire between the rooftops. That hadn't been there before. She knew she couldn't forget a building of that stature or flashiness, covered as it was by an almost baroque amount of metallic detail.

            Was this the street? All the old landmarks had given way to new ones. She hadn't seen anyone she recognized either and no one had approached her. Maybe she had changed too much and was unrecognizable to all but the people who had known her best. She didn't think it would be very helpful to ask an unfamiliar person for directions... Her mother might have moved to another part of the city after all this restructuring had taken place. Maybe there was a postal office that could point her in the direction of her mother's whereabouts.

            She felt haunted by shades of her childhood dashing in and out of the alleyways. The hollow tree had been somewhere around here and the well too. Her first home, and Aunt Ruth's home. Had any of the friends and playmates of her childhood returned to Swansard? What about Talzian? Did he ever go out to the central gateway plaza to stand in the shadow of his fallen father's monument? She thought she could picture him as he would look now- he would be twenty- doing that very thing, searching that idealized metal image for some hint of a resemblance to a man he had never known. Tielle had never known what her own father looked like. The portraits and photos had all been lost or destroyed during the war.

            Before she knew it, she had allowed herself to wander all the way to the front of the garrison. There was a fountain in the square between it and the civilian buildings and several officers stood beside it, tossing bits of their lunch bread to a pair of migrating ducks who were taking advantage of the cool of the fountain in the vast region of arid dryness that was the Harmonian far west. It seemed unusual to see officers loitering outside like this while they ate, and clearly these men were not entirely at ease. They kept glancing at the heavy door to the main garrison building, expecting their commanding officer to burst out of there at any second.

            "When's Lady Kaeyani expecting us back? In a fortnight?"

            "Thereabouts, I gather," a stout man replied. The ducks nearly drowned out his gravelly voice with all their chatty quacking as they drifted through the splashing water.

            Out-of-towners, Tielle concluded and mentally berated herself for the weakness that had made her momentarily consider asking them, if not about her mother, at least how to get to the post office or the bureau.

            If there was one building that was likely to be unmoved and unaltered, it was probably the governor's mansion. She had yet to hear anything contradicting her belief that Katch Mercade was still the chief civil authority in Sanadia. Whether he had ever consulted his volumes by Bishop Talleric or not, somehow he had managed to be at least a competent enough official to finance a major rebuilding effort and keep from being assassinated by an unhappy citizen (this was, actually, a common fate for Harmonian bishops and governors of the far west, even the ones who were gentlest with their people. Sometimes a kind occupation was more hateful than a cruel one it seemed). The speed at which Sanadia was being made into a proper province of Harmonia was truly astounding. Tabard, Tisbahl, and Le Buque, all having belonged to the nation at least twice as long as Sanadia were only half as integrated, if even. Katch was happy to claim these results as his own, but in the secrecy of his study, he admitted to himself that he had no idea why this was. Even with his skill in delegating work, he could pick out no one man or woman who had made a substantial contribution to the Harmonianization of Sanadia. It seemed like it just happened to be some random characteristic of the people that made them more peaceably malleable than other newcomers to the nation. Perhaps it was the high levels of culture and technology that had predated the occupation here and were similar to Harmonia's own, or perhaps it was the presence of a stronger written tradition than oral, which made severing them from an old pedigree easier, but no one involved could actually say for sure. Sanadia was a baffling, if pleasant enough, conundrum. And Tielle, only half aware of most of these things, was about to run into a trouble Sanadian-Harmonian conundrum of her own.

            She was past the main door of the garrison, but the commander the men by the fountain had been expecting did not emerge from there, but from the stables. He was muscular and massive, standing an uncommon six feet and two inches tall. His dark complexion marked him as not necessarily Sanadian, but clearly western. There was something disconcerting in the sweeping gaze he gave the plaza, cataloguing everything and everyone he saw before settling his wild eyes on Tielle.

            She stopped in her tracks, frozen to the spot. While that vaguely unhinged gaze was foreign to her, the distinctive, hawkish nose was not. And combined with his superior swagger and slight overbite, the image of a boy, rough and rowdy, but awkwardly polite around her mother drifted into her mind. This military man, all decked out in blue and brown and white with epaulets and insignia, who blond-haired, freckle-faced ethnic Harmonians were waiting relatively patiently for, was the son of servants. Her parents' servants. The first general of the Southwestern Regional Army under Bishop Kaeyani was a long-lost son of Sanadia: Raymond.

            "Ti-elle," he said, elongating and breaking her name into two slick syllables. He had picked up a southwestern accent.

            "Raymond," she mouthed, but not sound came out. How was she supposed to deal with this situation? What could they possibly have to say to each other? She was here as a borderline Third Class Citizens searching for her mother and ready to file the necessary paperwork to petition the government for freedom of movement within Harmonia's borders. He was here- well, she didn't know why (yet), but whatever the reason, it was official government business along with his subordinates as a high-ranking officer in a strategically central regional army. She was the conquered, he the conqueror. And based on how he wore that uniform and the way his men smiled, holding his heritage as if it were nothing, he fit his adopted role very well. When people spoke of Harmonianized, people like Raymond were the epitome of what they meant.

            "I didn't know you were in town, Ti-elle. I would've dropped by your place if I'd known." Raymond's attention drew the eyes of his men to her as well. "This is a childhood pal of mine," he explained to them, "Ti-elle Sasvenie. Her mother and my mother were like sisters."

            "That's cute, General," one of the captains commented. "Not so often we get to see your homey side."

            "I keep it tucked away for moments like this. I can't go and ruin it by using it to oft-ten," he laughed and his subordinates laughed with him. "Besides, I feel much more at home-like in Fatyl than Swan-sard. This place is shaping up nicely, Rimini thinks well enough of it, but it is still just not my Harmonia."

            "Raymond," Tielle objected, stepping backwards out of his impressive shadow, "You're Sanadian!" He might have done her the honor of referring to her last name as if it still had any meaning here or anywhere, but to speak as if he couldn't be at home in Swansard until it became more Harmonian when already it appeared to be becoming more like Han'Nyac and Campanella with each passing year- that was ridiculous! His mother had been as traditional a Sanadian as any, and not even very urbane, but simple and superstitious. His family had no name and no land. If Raymond tossed away his heritage, he had nothing.

            "So?" he leered at her, "What does that mean to me? I was raised in the home of the high priestess. I am as Harmonian as she." He closed the distance she had created between them and took a small scroll on officially stamped paper out of his from a pouch at his belt. "She gave me her name." He stooped to his usual petty ways, "And I can prove it," he pushed the mobilization order into her hands. Very plainly it referred to him as "General Raymond Kaeyani."

            "Your mother used to serve mine," Tielle said softly.

            Raymond looked irked at this truth of a past he had meant to soften, but as it appeared his men had not heard her, he let the anger go, returning to his overbearing style of mock-camaraderie. He snatched the order back and returned it to his pouch. "And now," he pronounced deliberately in his off-putting new accent, "You may very well serve me!" As if he had not truly thought it until he was saying it, his eyes lit up with the words as they left his tongue. "Why should I wallow in the mud of Sanadia when I can be a part of the glorious Harmonian war machine?" he smiled, bearing all his teeth. She would resist the, "your teeth have too many gaps to be Harmonian," jab. He didn't seem especially angry, but he was growing more frightening by the second.

            "Your star may have fallen, Sas-venie, but mine- mine has only risen!"

            She wasn't sure she agreed. He seemed to have lost something in his transformation from a simple Sanadian boy to a ruthless Harmonian man. And by Tielle's accounting, it was something not only in his heart, but in his head.

            "Well, it's been great to see you and all, Raymond, but I just got into town and I need to go figure out where my mom is living now and then check in with the Bureau of Third Class Citizens," she made as if to leave, but Raymond put his hand on her arm to stop her.

            "I can help you find both," he said, having regained a certain degree of calm. "Your mother is living with your sister at the governor's mansion, which is the easiest thing to find in this whole city- you can't miss it- and the Bureau's office is north of there, between a bakery and a butcher's shop."

            "Uh, thanks, Raymond."

            "Not a problem. This is a little place, but it's easy to get lost if you're not familiar with the twists and turns. Rimsky must've warped the streets so they didn't go back together square or circular when they worked on rebuilding it."

            "My mom lives with Solanne? How did you know that?"

            "Eh, just getting around," he shrugged, "I had to see the governor about some things and she said hello to me. She's looking her age. I always liked your mother."

            "Thanks, Raymond." She felt like she was repeating herself. "Thanks again." He waved as she hurried away.

            Tielle didn't like to linger over it, but really, what future had anyone thought there was for Raymond, a barely educated orphan? He had become a Harmonian, but in doing so, he had exceeded all the expectations his neighbors ever pinned to him. Indeed, even for a Harmonian, he had done spectacularly. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the thought. Why was life so mesmerizingly difficult to understand?

 

            Although she had rushed to the governor's mansion, Tielle hesitated before knocking on the door. She had quite a history with this place, even if her mother was here now and she had a perfectly legitimate reason to inquire within. ...Had things turned out alright for the other servants after she had ruined things for all of them? ...Were things any better for her sister now? ...Had Astalia and Domionne ever moved out of their father's house?

            She was spared having to knock as the governor came to the door himself on his way out on business. "Tielle." He hadn't been expecting this.

            "Katch," she nodded, going for a bold approach. What did she have to lose?

            He smiled. He wasn't going to reproach her for that. He had always sort of liked her nerve. She was cute. Wilder-looking than her sister and still somewhat boyish, but pretty. "So, you've escaped Lissy's clutches?"

            She snickered. Lissy. "I'm here to see my mom."

            "Go on in," he held the door for her. "I hope you're going to be staying for awhile. You always liven things up."

            "Maybe for a while, but I can't handle livin' here too long, Katch. Sure you like me now, but we'll butt heads sooner of later and you'll regret it. But, hey, we'll talk more later." She tipped her cap to him as he closed the front door behind her.

 

            Myalah couldn't stop staring at her daughter. How had she lasted apart from her for so many years? "You'll have to tell me everything," she made Tielle promise as she held her hand.

            Tielle couldn't take her eyes off her mother either. Her hair was graying and her elegant face had experienced more than its fair share of worry and wear. The change was shocking because she hadn't seen it happen gradually. Suddenly it was just there. "I will, definitely. ...I think there are a lot of things I'd like to hear about from you too."

            It was reassuring to have at least this one person still seem the same. Tielle had tried so hard to stay Sanadian, only to find out that what it meant to be Sanadian had changed. To Harmonian eyes, Sanadia's swift transformation was a success story. Tielle felt strange, having been left behind by the one thing she had clung to so fervently. Still, she couldn't say she regretted what she had done. She didn't want to be Harmonian; she just wanted to be herself.

 

            She stayed for a month at the governor's mansion, more because of the difficulty involved in getting her mother to let her go, than in any difficulty in convincing the Bureau to allow her to relocate to the Calerian region to seek employment as a mercenary. It was hard to live in Swansard now. She needed a way to let out some of her frustrations, and the freedom of a new identity, in a profession where no one would care if she were Sanadian, Harmonian, or anything else as long as she could hold her own in a fight. And it wasn't like she could never come back to her family again.

            But she couldn't go home. The governor's mansion was no home to her. Home was a place that no longer existed.

 

*********

 

            "The way you bear yourself, you look like a queen." It was true that fighting, drinking, or browsing through the market, she held herself well. And he was a man who appreciated a touch of innate grace. You didn't see enough of that kind of thing in Harmonia. The absence of things like that made him wonder why he had come back. Because they can't be trusted, he reminded himself as the treaty slowly neared its expiration date. Because this is where you were born, he tried to forget.

            Tielle smiled. She liked that. A slight nod to Sriha led her casual partner to quickly pay her tab and disappear into the crowd. They had already worked out this code for a man they'd like to be left alone with a long time ago. It wasn't that often she got to use it.

            "I almost could've been one," she invited him to speak with her further. With her proximity to royalty, it was practically true. If Sanadia were to resurrect its monarchy that day, they would probably find she stood closest to the throne. Anyone closer would be long dead.

            "That's nice to hear," he answered. There was a hint of a smile in his one eye as he hopped through the hoops of this game. "The name's Geddoe."

            "I'm Tielle."

            They shook hands. They were both wearing gloves, a common accessory of the local mercenaries. He wore a sword at his side, and armor. She had never seen him around Caleria before, but she was sure he had to be looking for work. Visually, he fit the standards perfectly. She sipped her beer. She had a feeling he wasn't one to waste words. Not that she minded. She'd heard enough words wasted in her lifetime as it was.

            "The thing is, I'm putting together a team, and I could use a queen."

            It was more of a whim than any special hunch, but Tielle felt like this was a man she could put her trust in. Anyway, she and Sriha had both been hoping for more regular spots on a team in the defense force for months now. This could be it.

            She allowed herself a fuller smile as she sealed the deal. "Then look no further."

 


End file.
